


Count Back From Ten

by Serpent_Tailed_Angel



Category: Groove Adventure RAVE | Rave Master
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-09-25
Updated: 2014-06-05
Packaged: 2017-12-27 14:25:20
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 10
Words: 33,309
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/979974
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Serpent_Tailed_Angel/pseuds/Serpent_Tailed_Angel
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Haru wakes up one day to find himself unable to wake up. His spirit, separated from his body, can only wander aimlessly. If he wants to get his body back he's going to be working on a time limit. And he's going to be working with Lucia.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

Living on an airship, the sunrise came early, and everyone learned to either sleep through the light or rise with it. Belnika, unaccustomed to the Resistance's ship, had not yet settled into either group. When the sun fell on her face she stirred, squinted, and threw her pillow at the window. Neither the sun nor the window cared enough to stop light from shining on her, however, so after a few minutes of trying to sleep in spite of it, Belnika got up.

Almost instantly, she regretted it. Not only because she'd had so much trouble getting to sleep the night before and still felt dead tired, but because the problem keeping her up was still there and, in fact, felt worse than before.

Ruby was the sort who slept in, but Elie was up, energetic as ever despite the early hour, and twirling her tonfa's around. Rubbing the sleep from her eyes, Belnika walked over to her roommate and tapped the girl's shoulder.

"Does anything feel off to you?"

Elie paused, thinking a moment. "Julia isn't yelling yet?"

Their last roommate was still sound asleep. She hadn't been the reason Belnika had been up so late, but she'd likely woken most of the ship in the middle of the night, bursting into the boys' room and yelling for them to stop sparing because the noise was pissing her off. That had been past midnight. Julia would probably sleep in.

"You don't sense anything? Any magic?" Belnika prompted.

Elie thought about it again, and nodded. Since meeting Belnika, she'd been getting better about detecting magic. Last night she'd mistaken the sense for some aspect of her new roommate's powers, but now that she focused on it, she could tell that the strange magic drifting into the room was distinct from Bel's.

"Does anyone else here know magic?" Belnika asked.

"Not that I know of." Elie shrugged. They'd beaten the bad guys, so whatever it was, it couldn't matter too much. If there was anything her Etherion couldn't handle, then Haru could no doubt take it.

In fact, Haru was taking it, though not in the way Elie imagined.

Across the hall Haru, one of those strange people who rose with the sun completely energetic and ready to take on the day, was getting out of bed and noticing that, despite his having literally rolled out of the bed and crashed to the floor, no one in his room, not Let, not Musica, not Shuda, had stirred. Let would be up soon, but Haru hated to disturb the other two. Still in polka-dot pajamas, he crawled around their beds.

Their room had gotten stuffy last night from their sparing, and the door was left open so it could air out. He crawled past, not noticing that where his hip should have clipped the door he instead passed through the solid object.

He rose to his feet after crawling a few doors down and crept along the hall, trying to keep quite. His intentions were forgotten when he spotted Elie and Belnika exiting their own room, and he waved eagerly to them.

"Elie! Bel! Good morning!"

Without glancing his way, they both walked down the hall towards the kitchen.

Baffled by the blow off, Haru chased after.

Why had they ignored him? Had they heard he'd peeped on them bathing the night before? But Musica and Lazenby had been involved in that too. It had even been there idea. He considered telling them he'd only gone along with it to keep the others from getting carried away, but as he caught up with them and tried to start a conversation, they acted as though he wasn't there at all.

Finally, as they reached the kitchen, Haru gave in and said, "Look, I'm sorry. I shouldn't have spied on you."

No acknowledgement. Belnika opened a fridge and pulled out a juice carton. Elie grabbed eggs and a pan and began to scramble them.

They must have been too furious for words. Haru slunk to a table on the far side of the room and waited silently, head bowed, for one of them to acknowledge him at least enough to let him know how disappointed they were in him.

But they never did. Elie finished making her breakfast, which she split with Belnika, and the two sat beside Haru and ate without so much as glancing his way. Even when Let came an joined them, he ignored Haru.

"What are you mad at me for?" Haru asked.

Let didn't respond.

Well that made no sense. He might be annoyed on behalf of Julia. Haru vaguely remembered her coming into their room and yelling about something the night before, but he'd felt so tired he'd hardly had time to undress when he saw his bed. It was amazing he remembered anything after hitting the mattress at all.

By the time even Musica and Julia had gotten out of bed—Musica still being treated like a good friend despite peeping as well—Haru was certain the cold shouldering would drive him insane. But just as he opened his mouth to demand an explanation for his treatment, Musica said something that revealed a much greater issue then everyone pretending he isn't there.

"It's kind of weird for Haru to be the last one up, isn't it?"

Haru's mouth hung open like a fish's as he tried to process that. Deciding that Musica was messing with him, he said, "I was up before you, idiot."

Musica ignored him completely and went on. "Maybe we can draw on his face."

"Don't even think about it!"

"Me first!" Elie cried, racing up from the table and down the hall.

Haru scoffed and looked away. They were all messing with him, and he wasn't going to give them the satisfaction of seeing him try to perused them of his presence.

He began to suspect they truly didn't see him when Elie screamed. Haru, his friends, and everyone on that side of the ship all jumped to their feet and ran to make sure she was alright, which was when Haru noticed that not only did no one act as though they saw or heard him, but also as if they didn't feel him. That wouldn't be too impressive if people weren't running right through him. Shocked, he came to a stop in the middle of the hall, staring out the crowd gathering around his bedroom door as Elie screamed from inside.

"He's dead! Haru's dead!"

-o-

Lucia woke up feeling like the air was too thin but, upon thinking about it for a moment, decided that it felt more like he was too thin to breath. Was he sick? Everyone was always on his case about that. Don't overwork yourself. You need to rest. Don't eat that, it's junk. It was like they all thought they were his parents, rather than subordinates.

His least favorite was, "Are you sure you should be getting up so early? The sun isn't even up yet." If he had to hear about his unhealthy habits on top of coming down with a cold, he'd stab someone. And Lady Joker told him that was bad for morale, so he should try to avoid anything that would piss him off so badly.

He rolled over in bed and resigned himself to waiting for the sun. And waiting. And waiting.

He took a deep breath, grimacing at how the air seemed to slip away before it even reached his lungs. He suspected it wouldn't even matter if he stopped breathing and, bored enough in bed, decided to test that theory. Much to his surprise, he turned out to be right.

That… was unnerving. Now consciously reminding himself to breath, Lucia got up and went over to his balcony. The sky was only just beginning to get light and he doubted anyone might see him just then. It grated on his nerves to be hiding like a misbehaving child, but the whole of Demon Card seemed to think it would fall from greatness again without a leader, and thus was very careful about their new leader's wellbeing. And if he beat every person who reminded him to be health conscious he'd have no followers left.

Although he suspected that Reina had only ever mentioned that he should take better care of himself to get on his nerves, but it was too late to punish her for that. At least she hadn't been around to join in the crowd of worried voices when he came back from fighting the Rave Master so bruised he needed Megido to help him stand. But that was an unpleasant memory, so he locked it away and stepped outside.

Usually, the cool breeze that always passed by his room would soothe him, but that morning he felt nothing. Scowling, he stepped back into his own room, glanced at his bed, and decided his eyes were playing tricks on him in the dim light. His whole room was making him anxious, and if catching a cold was so awful then he could only imagine how everyone would react to him having a breakdown because his room was scary. His image as an unshakable, imposing monster was one of his greatest protections. A helpless child was easy to abuse, but no one double crossed a monster. Truly being one helped maintain the image, but knowing the image needed maintaining made every little slip feel like a total unmasking.

He reached for his doorknob, but paused, noticing his armored arm. He had no memory of getting dressed that morning and, not that he thought of it, no memory of undressing the night before. He'd felt tired earlier than normal and, too irritated by Megido's speech about wearing yourself down and giving the enemy an easy opening, had stopped sword practice early, gone to his room feeling like the walk upstairs had taken more energy than scaling a mountain, and almost forgotten to turn his lights off as he hurried to get into bed before he fell asleep where he stood.

And he'd slept all night in armor? Lucia knew he had a high tolerance for pain, but it seemed like he ought to be aching a bit more.

The lack of breathing was weird. The lack of pain or wind was weird. What else was weird?

The bed.

Hesitantly, Lucia turned and looked back at the bed. The sun was just starting to peek over the horizon, and his eyes had long adjusted to the lighting anyway. There was no mistaking what he saw there. He definitely saw himself still lying in bed.

People would understand if that unnerved him. Lucia grabbed for the doorknob, but his hand passed right through.

A memory of a door he could never get open, a door that kept him separate from the rest of the world for ten miserable years, surfaced. Panic seized him, and Lucia lifted a foot to kick the door down. Just like his hand on the knob, his foot passed right through. Unable to stop his momentum, the rest of him soon followed.

Now he was beyond grateful that no one else in the whole place seemed to realize the merits of rising before the sun. If the halls had been as busy then as they were at noon, a few dozen people would have seen him stumble clumsily to the floor.

Pulling back to his feet before anyone could see him sprawled out in the hall, Lucia ran over the list of strange happenings again, now adding intangibility. Intangibility? He raised a hand and cautiously felt for the wall, and saw his hand pass through yet again. Definitely intangibility.

So now what? Had he died? Was he a ghost? Wouldn't the Sinclair have warned him if something were fatally wrong? He'd died days from getting to Star Memory? Lucia bent over and clutched his stomach, taking a moment to realize his muscle memory was acting as though he'd been hyperventilating. He was too panicked to even register how disastrous that would look if someone saw him just then.

He leaned against the wall and tried to take deep breaths, then nearly panicked again when he remembered he wasn't breathing. He shut his eyes and started counting instead, reaching four digits before he could stand and face the situation.

His body. His body was still in bed. Was his body still breathing? If he was dead there was no helping it, but if it was only a curse causing this strange morning then he could have Shakuma fix everything.

He reached for the doorknob again, then remembered he could walk through walls now, and then realized he had leaned against a wall anyway. But when he tested the wall again, it was as intangible as before.

Giving up on thinking it out for the time being, Lucia went back into his room and leaned down on his bed and watched his body's face, looking for signs of… ah. Still breathing. He breathed his own sigh of relief, or at least went through the motions of it.

Now where was Shakuma? The old bat usually hung out in the attic, didn't he?

Lucia stood to go look, but found himself unwilling to start his search just yet. Shakuma might not be there, considering his orders. Besides, he wasn't dead, so there was no need to panic. He'd pulled out of much worse situations than this. This was just being a little ghostly. Temporarily, he assumed. Hoped. It seemed most likely that it could be undone. What harm could it do to try and figure things out first? He'd leaned on the wall and the bed, but passed through the wall before, and had yet to touch the door.

Taking a seat on the bed, Lucia started feeling the headboard and the wall behind it. as well as his own body.

His body was always solid, impenetrable no matter what he tried. There would be no walking back into it. But the wall, unless he really willed it to be solid, wouldn't hold his hand. So did the floor only hold him up because he felt he needed it to?

Or maybe it only held him up because he never thought of it, because Lucia suddenly found himself falling through the floor.

-o-

While Lucia was the one actually falling, Haru certainly felt as if he was in free fall, waiving and crying and shouting, desperately trying to get someone to notice that he was right there. He was fine. He wasn't dead, so stop crying, Elie.

No one listened, and Haru tried to shove his way to the front of the crowd to get to her. He walked straight through them instead, which wasn't the means he'd meant to use, but got him the ends he wanted.

Elie was collapse on his bed, wailing. Beside her was… Haru gulped. He was beside her was his own body. So what did that make him? A spirit? Was he dead?

Belnika squeezed through the crowd and ran to his bedside, leaning down and pressing an ear up by his face. "He's breathing!" She stood and held her hands over him, then frown. "I can't tell what's wrong with him. It feels like a curse, but I can't break it."

Haru, along with everyone else, breathed a sigh of relief. It was still bad news, but at least he wasn't dead.

"So what do we do?" Someone asked. "Demon Card has Hardner's Dark Bring now, and we're still one Rave short. With Haru under a spell…"

"Maybe Sieg Hart could break it, poyo," Ruby suggested.

An awkward silence, the sort that can only follow the dumbest person in the group having the good idea that no one else thought of, echoed through the halls.

"Change course!" Yuma roared.

-o-

Lucia hissed in pain and clutched his ankle. Was that bone pressing against his skin? Did spirits have bones? However serious an injury it was, it fucking hurt.

He tried to stand, but his armored boot poked into the wound and his leg gave out beneath him. Lucia tore it off, and the rest of his armor with it. The gear fell off him and slipped through the ground, and Lucia tried not to think about that. He'd fallen three stories before managing to stop himself, and had no desire to drop all the way to the basement. He still had a thin fabric undershirt and pants to protect his modesty, and he'd rather look under-dressed than wear something that caused him pain.

Unhindered by armor, he inspected the injury more closely. Definitely a broken ankle. The idea that a spirit could break their ankle felt absurd, and it was just his luck that he'd find a way.

He stood again and tried to limp. It was manageable, but he sorely wished he had something to lean on. The walls were intangible again, as was any other object that might look like it could support his weight. Lucia gave up and started to crawl. Anyone he encountered would understand. And if they didn't, they could die.

Shakuma had speeded his recovery after his loss to Haru, and if anyone could get him back into his own body, it would be the world's greatest sorcerer. But Shakuma had been sent out on a mission three days earlier. Would he be back yet? Lucia hoped so, and resigned himself to crawling all the way to the attic room that Shakuma had taken residence in.

The trip took two hours, during which time Lucia discovered he was invisible to anyone else. That helped him maintain his dignity as he crawled, but he also worried that Shakuma might not be able to see him either. How could he get help if no one knew what was wrong?

In the end, it turned out that wouldn't matter for a little while yet. Shakuma wasn't there and Lucia, tired and sore, didn't have the energy to go and search for Megido or anyone else who might be able to help him. He sat on the floor and stayed there.

Lucia didn't know how long he sat in the attic, sulking and massaging the area around his injured ankle, but the sun was high when two men walked in.

"Not here. I told you he wasn't here."

"Yeah, but if you were wrong and we hadn't checked, it would be our heads."

"Gonner doesn't remove heads over something so small."

"Yeah, but Lucia might."

The shorter of the two men snorted, and Lucia added the man to his hit list. Whoever he was. "It wouldn't get back to Lucia."

"Yes it would. He's supposed to be heading the attack."

Attack? What attack? Lucia thought about it, and realized there was an attack planned for that day. He was going to go retrieve the Dark Bring that Haja had left in the sorcerers' city. But he sure as hell wasn't going now, and without Shakuma either and these idiots on the team, Lucia wondered if his army would succeed. Probably not.

"If Lucia were gonna come, he'd be at the ship by now. Don't know what's up with him today. Usually he's already in the training grounds by the time everyone else gets up. 'You! How do you expect be any good if you sleep through half the day!' Someone needs to teach him when the day actually starts."

Lucia moved the man up a few places on his list. Did his men usually talk of him in such a way when they thought he couldn't hear?

The taller one shuffled his feet nervously. "Don't talk about him like that. We should head back and report that Shakuma hasn't returned yet."

"Lucia'll never know." The shorter one walked across the room and peered out the window. "Nice view. No wonder the geezer likes it."

"Chet!"

"Relax. They're checking every last corner of this place. They won't need us back for a while." Chet turned back to the taller man and walked his way. Lucia eyed him curiously as he did. Human beings were one thing he hadn't attempted to pass through yet, and Chet was on course to pass through him. "Why not hang out up here and take a nice earned break while Lucia takes his sweet time getting to—"

Lucia wasn't sure if it was more startling to suddenly find himself a few feet higher up, or to have Chet stop talking so suddenly. He blinked and looked around, trying to reorient himself.

"Chet? You okay?"

The taller man was looking right at him. Lucia looked down at his hands, too pale to really be his, then back to the taller man. "What?"

He winced. That wasn't his voice.

"Shakuma's probably got weird spells floating around this place. Let's just go."

The taller man turned and walked down the attic stairs. Lucia hesitated, then followed. Needles of pain stabbed up his leg with each step, but it no longer caved. Someone was holding it up. Making walking even more uncomfortable, Lucia felt half a foot too short, and it effected his gait. He lost his footing over a dozen times following the taller man.

Why he followed, Lucia couldn't quite say. He tried to reason that possessing Chet, for he realized now that he'd done just that, had given him the opportunity to move with his injury and he simply didn't know what to do with it, but the truth he wouldn't admit was that he'd been too stunned to disobey.

The idea of disobeying became tempting when he reached the ship. A man who might have been named Gonner nodded to the two and gestured for them to get on when the taller man reported that Shakuma wasn't in the attic.

"Get on," Gonner told them. "F-team's in the back of the ship."

F-team? Lucia tried to resist, but the taller man grabbed his arm and pulled, and the body he'd taken over was too weak to do anything but be dragged along. F-team. Lucia didn't want to fight with F-team. He only admitted recruits who were destined for F-team because sometimes numbers alone were all it took to win.

What would happen if his host body died in battle? Would he die as well, or would he exit the body and be free to take a new one? He could only guess, although that his host was going to die was a sure thing.

The F stood for Fodder.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So I just remembered I had this story posted here, too. Whoops. Better get those updates up.

Sieg slept like the dead, and when Heidi, a fire sorceress in training, was sent in to tell him the news she'd had to resort to lifting his mattress and rolling him off the bed to wake him. His uncle had done that several times in the past, but Sieg was still startled when he crashed to the floor.

"What…?"

"The Rave Master is dying! Hurry!"

Heidi left then, yelling that Haru had been brought to the hospital, and Sieg scurried to make himself presentable. His hair was a bit more disheveled than normal, one of the cuffs of his jacket was unbuttoned, and his collar was turned the wrong way as he ran from his room and out the door to the hospital, leaving his home unlocked with the door wide open, no less. But he trusted everyone not to rob him, and even if he didn't, this was too important to waste time with silly things like shutting doors.

It was early, and not many people were out yet. Without having to weave through crowds Sieg made it to the hospital, which was clear on the other side of town, in a matter of minutes. Granted, he was too out of breath to ask the receptionist which room Haru was in.

Luckily, the woman at the front desk knew that they had the Rave Master in a coma, and it didn't take much to guess that Sieg was there to see him. She gave directions to his room while it occurred to Sieg that he could have saved time and energy and flown.

He was still panting when he reached Haru's hospital room on the second floor. Haru was the only one to look up at him immediately, but as he was a spirit, the gesture went unnoticed.

"Is he… alright?" Sieg asked, getting everyone's attention. He swallowed, took a deep breath, and added, "I was told he… was dying."

"The doctor said he isn't going to die," Elie said, "But they're worried he might not wake up."

But he wasn't dead. Between gasps for breath, Sieg breathed a sigh of relief.

A doctor, who had been standing over Haru's bed, smiled at Sieg and walked out of the room, gesturing for him to follow. Sieg looked to see if anyone else had noticed, but they were all looking back at Haru's body. He followed without saying anything.

Haru's spirit stepped out of the room as well.

The doctor shut the door before addressing Sieg. "There aren't any signs of injury or illness that may have caused his condition. We can detect magic, but there's no obvious means by which the spell is causing this, or even what exactly it's caused."

"So his odds of recovery are low?"

"He won't recover," the doctor corrected. "He's still breathing, and he still has a pulse, but we can't find any signs of brain activity. I didn't know a person could still breath after their brain shuts down. Even with magic affecting him…" he shook his head.

A quip about Haru having never had brain activity to start with passed through Sieg's mind, but now hardly seemed like the best time.

"We haven't told his friends yet. If you think…"

"They don't need to be told immediately," Sieg said.

Horrible as it was to move past Haru's essential death, Sieg's mind jumped to thoughts of a third Rave Master. Whoever it was, they would need to be located and trained before Lucia could try and capture the last Dark Bring. Or Haru wouldn't be the only death.

Sieg was forming plans for how they might possibly stall Demon Card while finding someone to fight them as he walked back into Haru's room, but noticed something that, maybe, should get priority first. He might be practical enough to think of what needed to happen with Haru out of the picture, but he wasn't so inhuman that he couldn't show consideration for Haru's condition either. He hoped.

"Do all of you have a place to stay?"

Musica shook his head. "The resistance is leaving now to see if they can hold Demon Card off. The hospital isn't charging for Haru, so we can afford a hotel for a while, and I called my gang up so they're on their way. We can squeeze onto the ship once they arrive."

"You can stay at my house until he recovers," Sieg offered.

"There's a lot of us," Shuda pointed out. "We won't fit."

"I assure you, all of you and Musica's friends can fit comfortably." Sieg maintained a straight face as he said it, but inwardly cringed. He hated explaining that one, and if they didn't ask now, they sure would when they saw where he lived.

Shuda and Let, the only two who hadn't gone back to preoccupying themselves with watching Haru, exchanged looks and nodded their approval.

Sieg smiled. "Let me show you the way."

-o-

Haru followed silently behind the others, wishing there was some way he could let them know he wasn't brain dead. Particularly, he wanted to tell Musica first. He could imagine his friend having some witty response to that and hearing Musica mocking him would return some sense of normalcy. It had been over twenty-four hours now that Haru had been trapped outside of his body, and he was beginning to go mad from the loneliness of being a spirit.

Particularly, he was going to stab something—or at least attempt to—if he didn't get new clothes soon. He was still wearing the polka dot pajamas he had fallen asleep in, and spirits didn't get wardrobes.

The temptation to stab, fortunately, did not become overwhelming on the walk to Sieg's. Haru was almost content to listen to the usually serious sorcerer grow increasingly flustered trying to keep a conversation going. The attempt to distract everyone from the situation at hand was obvious, but Haru was grateful to Sieg for trying. The others were too, Haru imagined. Or they would be if they could stop moping long enough to notice Sieg was still talking. He'd almost launched into full monologue.

Everyone following Sieg halted suddenly, Sieg himself coming to a stop a moment later. Haru did not notice until he had walked halfway through Sieg and, drained from worrying about his condition and his friends' state of minds, couldn't bother to take a step forward or backward to remedy that.

"This is it… Welcome." The words 'to my humble abode', or something to that effect, almost slipped out, but that would have been a lie. Sieg turned around to see everyone's reactions.

Sieg's home was anything but humble. Four stories tall and sprawling on either side. And who knew how far back it went? Musica suspected he could have managed to fit five… no… six of his ship into the place. And he'd still have plenty of room left over to maintain them too.

"Are you, um… rich?" Musica asked.

Sieg cleared his throat. "Anyway, I'm sure you can all fit in the guest wing."

"H-hold on. Don't ignore my question," Musica insisted.

But Sieg went right along as if it had never been asked. "I'll make sure that the rooms are cleaned out by evening. We'll need to hire a chef too, if more people are coming…"

I'd rather handle the cooking myself…

Haru blinked, as certain he'd heard Sieg say that as he was that the sorcerer's mouth hadn't moved.

"Make yourselves at home. I don't know if you had any luggage with you, but—"

"It's still at the hospital," Shuda told Sieg, which jolted everyone from the shock of seeing such a huge mansion and reminded them of why they were staying in it.

"I'll have them brought here," Sieg said. "Come inside. I'll show you too…" he paused, not sure where exactly to show them with the guest rooms untouched in some time and no other facility in the house not looking extremely pretentious.

Would it look worse to take them to the pool, or the theater?

Mentally, Sieg cursed his family for needing so many add ons, something Haru also heard loud and clear.

"I'll show you in," Sieg settled on. "Feel free to look around."

He was in the middle of a thought about how it would still look like he was showing off if they found all the extravagances on their own when he stepped forward and out of the space Haru occupied. The voice of his thoughts vanished.

Haru stood there, taking a moment to process this discovery. After coming to terms with the fact that Sieg was, in fact, from a disgustingly rich family, he took a moment to acknowledge that he also seemed to be capable of reading people's mind. He then ran to catch up to the others, but didn't make it to Sieg's front door before they closed it.

"Hey!" he grabbed for the doorknob, but his hand passed right through. "Let me in! I can't open the door!"

Of course, no one could hear him.

-o-

For a good six hours, Haru sat on the front steps of Sieg's house, waiting for someone to open the door and forgetting that, as a spirit, he could walk right through it. If he wasn't dead, Haru thought, then he would die of boredom. How unfair that all his friends got to explore Sieg's mansion while he, the one with the condition that landed them there, was stuck outside.

Something interesting happened shortly after noon. A woman in a witches hat and a very… Haru gulped... blush inducing dress ran up. He could really make out the bounce in her steps like that.

She stopped at Sieg's door, grabbing an old brass knocker and banging it against the wood. A fricken butler opened the door to see who was there.

The wood door swung right though Haru, who swore.

"Fetch Sieg! The town is under attack."

The butler left the door open while he hurried to get Sieg. Rather than take the chance to go in without having to walk through anything, Haru took a running head start, moving towards a cloud of dust that was rising over a building several streets down.

Musica ran passed him a moment later, followed by Let and Julia, and Haru could hear Elie in the background, arguing with the witch over whether or not it was a good idea to fight.

Elie never ran after him, so she must have lost the argument. Not that it mattered. Upon reaching town, Haru could see they were hardly needed. The attacking force, which had likely arrived on the large ship with the Demon Card insignia painted on it, consisted almost entirely of small fry, and while the sorcerers of the town weren't all Sieg, they weren't all pushovers either. The stronger sorcerers, along with Musica, had taken on the one enemy who looked even half decent, although if he was a high ranking member than Haru hadn't seen him before. A new member of the Oracion Six? Lucia must have been desperate to fill the positions if he'd let that man take the title. But even if neither Lucia nor his best men were there, it seemed odd that Sieg hadn't joined in the fight to defend his hometown. They had no way of knowing Lucia wasn't about to drop in.

Then Haru spotted him. In the middle of the battlefield with bed hair to match Haru's—there were no brushes for spirits—in a thin white shirt and black pants, looking around blankly at the battle and going oddly ignored by everyone else, stood Lucia.

Lucia's wandering gaze stopped on Haru, and his eyes focused and sharpened into a menacing glare. The blond tensed and sneered, but made no move towards Haru.

Instinctively, Haru tensed as well. Now was not a good time for a faceoff. He didn't even have his sword, and if he did it would probably pass right through Lucia if he tried to swing it. Lucia wouldn't even notice the…

Wouldn't even notice…?

Then it hit Haru that Lucia was making eye contact with him. Real eye contact. Not looking in his direction, but looking at him. If Lucia could see him, and if no one else acted as if they could see Lucia…

Well, that figured. Of course he'd be stranded in some spirit plane with only Lucia for company.

Nothing Haru did so far as a spirit, not tripping through walls or pinching himself or the time he ran off the airship and fell through the boarding platform, had managed to do anything worse than smart for a moment, so Haru was feeling pretty invincible just then. And if he was right, and Lucia was a spirit too, then the worst they could do was annoy one another. Lucia might even know something about what had caused him to be forced from his body.

So Haru stole himself and walked towards the blond, who had yet to do anything worse than glare.

As he got close, Lucia did take a step back, grimacing. Haru hesitated, wondering if Lucia could sense him more than see him, or hadn't figured out yet that they didn't take damage as spirits. Lucia hadn't struck him as an idiot, so he probably knew they were fine… ish. Haru decided that Lucia could only tell something was standing in front of him, but not see what.

"Do you want something, Glory?" Lucia asked.

Scratch that. "What's with that getup?" Haru asked, for lack of a better response. Sure, he could say what he wanted, but for someone as direct and, more importantly, spiteful as Lucia, being direct back wasn't the most tempting method.

Lucia raised an eyebrow, examining Haru's pajamas. "You tell me."

Haru felt his cheeks turn red, and began scanning Lucia for anything he might be able to use as a comeback. There was nothing too odd about his clothes. They were overly casual, especially for someone who usually wore a breastplate wherever they went, but plain fabric and simple cuts didn't leave much room for mockery. Although bare feet did, now that Haru noticed Lucia's lack of shoes of any sort. The loose fabric of his pants barely covered the tops of his feet, and they had no cover beyond that. In fact, the left didn't even have that. The left leg of his pants seemed to be lifted slightly by… huh… that looked awfully swollen.

Haru glanced up to Lucia's face. His eyes had widened in horror when Haru noticed the injury. Just like Haru was in no shape to fight a tangible person, Lucia was in no shape to fight period. Even standing was pushing it, although he didn't have much choice. After over twenty-four hours of possession, he'd finally managed to leave the host he'd accidentally entered through, as far as he could tell, sheer will power, and not a moment too soon. The idiot had been sliced in two by a spell seconds later. That left Lucia without anything to support himself, and he couldn't quite reduce himself to crawling off a battlefield. Since seeing Haru watching him, clearly a spirit as well, Lucia was relieved for that bit of stubbornness. He didn't, wouldn't, couldn't let the enemy see him like that.

But it hurt too much to walk, and if Haru chose to raise a fist now, Lucia would be hard pressed to dodge or fire back. Pissing Haru off insulting his wardrobe choice might not be too wise either, so Lucia did his best not to think about his own words and asked Haru, "Have you noticed how the floor is solid but the walls aren't?"

Haru blinked.

"Don't think about it too hard."

Lucia followed his own advice, but Haru, introduced to the idea, couldn't help but wonder why the ground was no less tangible than the walls.

And then he slipped right through the dirt.

-o-

It was hard to tell how long he fell through the ground, although Haru wouldn't have guessed more than a few seconds. He landed on his back in a large, open cavern somewhere beneath the city. Old, white stone overtaken by moss lined the walls, and a fountain rose from the center of the room. Haru stared at it while he recovered from the jolt of falling what he'd hazard to guess was at least twelve stories, then rolled over and took a closer look around.

It was pretty. Maybe it would be a nice place to sneak off to with Elie and talk in private once he got back to normal. However he was going to get back to normal. He'd need to find his way out first, but if no one knew about the place then… ah. Nevermind.

Sieg sat at the base of the fountain, looking bored beyond all reason. He sure had gotten there fast. It had only been, at best, five minutes since they left the mansion. There must have been some magic shortcut to the place. But why had Sieg hidden himself away during the fight? He was no coward. He'd walked towards a ticking Etherion time bomb twice, targets King, and nearly fought the whole Oracion Six on his own. An attack defending his home alongside the people he'd known since childhood was nothing compared to that.

Well… if Sieg knew the way in, then Sieg knew the way out, which was more than Haru could say. He'd wait for the sorcerer to leave and follow him, and until then he could do a bit of investigating. Lucia was experimenting with their spirit states if he knew some trick to make the ground stop being solid. Haru needed to work out his abilities too.

He sat down beside Sieg, hand reaching into the bluenet's leg, and started listening to Sieg's thoughts, as clear as if the man had spoken the aloud.

Sieg was mostly concerned about how his friends and family were faring without him, occasionally cursing the dark bring. It wasn't until several minutes into Haru's testing how much contact was needed to catch thoughts that he learned why this mattered. Somewhere in this room the last Sinclair Stone was hidden. Sieg was guarding it. And he was embarrassed to have the duty. It seemed not too many people knew he had the stone, and that he'd been hiding was the general accusation he was expecting when the fight ended.

Well, the joke was on Lucia now. He thought he was so great, sending Haru plummeting through the earth? Now Haru knew, more or less, where the final stone Lucia needed was, and if Lucia had some injury that had carried over to his spirit form, then it would be easy for Haru to keep the blond away from anyone he might be able to pry the info out of.

If he could get back before Lucia found anyone else who knew Sieg's secret, that was.


	3. Chapter 3

Sieg didn't leave until the next morning, when someone came to tell him the Rave Master's friends were asking about him. The fight had ended before supper the day before and they were still tallying the prisoners. Haru tried to catch the messenger's thoughts on Sieg avoiding the battle, but abandoned the attempt when trying nearly made him miss leaving with Sieg.

The Hart mansion, which Haru had learned from mind snooping, belonged to Sieg's uncle, a man who was magically retarded but a genius at business, and who had taken in all of his relatives who found jobs that benefited time itself rather than something as trivial as the economy. It was much more alive than it had been the day before. The girls had discovered the pool on their own, and with Sieg hiding and his uncle on a business trip, there was no one to stop them from recruiting the staff (who were happy for the change of pace) to guard the pool from peeping boys while they tempted fate by skinny dipping. Maids were so caught up in their ninja-like efforts to keep guests and male coworkers alike from peeking into the pool room, that when Sieg rounded the corner and asked what they were doing, one reflexively swatted him in the face with a feather duster.

"Ah! Mr. Hart, my apologies."

"It's fine." Sieg blinked, then lifted a hand to rub dust from his eyes. "How are the Rave Master's friends?"

"Oh, well!" The maid straightened, hiding the feather duster behind her back as if it were evidence of foul play, and not a tool she'd been supplied to do her job. "The girls are all in better spirits this morning. Miss. Julia in particular has been doing well since the attack yesterday. I presume you were recruited to help clean up after that incident."

Sieg nodded. It wasn't lying if you didn't say it out loud.

"The boys are doing better as well. Aside from Mr. Musica. He hasn't spoken much since yesterday. Mr. Shuda and Mr. Let were concerned for him."

"He was a close friend of Haru's," Sieg guessed, recalling that Musica had been present before Haru had even confronted King. "He may be taking it harder."

"Well, I hope he cheers up soon," the maid said.

Sieg nodded again and walked past her. As he disappeared down the hall, she drew the feather duster back out and fell into stance to strike the next intruder who happened by. Haru waited a minute to see if she'd snag anyone else, then went to look for Musica.

He found his friend, along with Let and Belnika, in the living room. Or the entertainment room. Or whatever they called the room with the TV that encompassed the entire wall. Haru couldn't imagine Sieg using half the luxuries in his home. His uncle must enjoyed killing time. Or inviting lady friends over to kill time, perhaps. One of the couches on the opposite end of the room was heart shaped.

Let was listening to Belnika's horror stories about what it was like to be naked in a pool with Julia. For someone who was too upset over their friend's condition to speak, Musica was paying plenty of attention as well, although Haru forgave him for that. It was a tale worth hearing. Belnika skimped on none of the details, prattling it off so fast, so panicked, that she didn't seem to realize what exactly she was describing to two members of the male species.

She got to the part of the story where Julia and tackled her down, and Haru hummed his approval at her recounting of it. To his surprise, Musica glanced up at him when he made the noise, but quickly looked back to Belnika.

Had he heard that? Haru stepped closer and cleared his throat. Musica didn't look up.

Not one to be deterred by a small failure, he leaned down and waved a hand in front of Musica's face. Musica moved as if to grab his arm, but his hand passed right through. He turned the motion into a stretch before anyone else noticed something off.

"Musica?" Haru asked.

Musica ignored him.

Haru took a deep breath and leaned down next to Musica's ear. "Musica!"

This time Musica flinched, getting Let and Bel's attention.

"Is something wrong?" Let asked.

"Just need some fresh air…" Musica mumbled.

He stood slowly from the couch. Slow enough that Belnika decided it was fine to resume her story before he was firmly on his feet. Let returned his attention to Bel, and didn't notice the slight limp to Musica's gait as he walked out of the room and onto a balcony.

Haru followed Musica out.

"You saw me. Don't pretend you didn't."

Musica glanced back at him, expression blank.

"Why didn't you say anything back there?"

A pause, then Musica said, "What would that have accomplished, beyond getting me odd looks?"

Haru had to admit that was a fair point. If the others hadn't seen him, then it would look odd for Musica to start talking to him in public. But why could only Musica see him? And why hadn't he seen him earlier? Haru decided he didn't care. He had a friend to talk to again.

"I need you to convince the others that I'm alright… um… that I'm not brain dead."

"You sure you're not?"

Haru swatted at Musica, but his hand passed right through. "Please, Musica. And ask Sieg to try and find a spell that might have caused this. If he knows what's gone wrong then it should be easier for him to make it right?"

"Sieg?"

"He's back now." Haru paused, and decided to add a cover for his Dark Bring guarding friend. "He had to help the other sorcerers get things organized again after the attack."

Musica grinned. "Is that so? Alright."

He limped back into the room and, despite his claim to Haru less than a minute earlier, promptly turned around and asked, "By the way, where were you?"

Belnika and Let looked up.

"Who?" Let asked.

"Musica, are you feeling okay?"

"W-what are you doing talking to me?" Haru asked.

Musica smirked.

Let cleared his throat and stood up. "Musica, who are you talking to?"

"I'm talking to Haru." Let and Belnika gasped, which made Musica's smirk grow deeper. He held a hand out as if presenting Haru, making it appear to his companions that he was gesturing to thin air. "Can't you see him?"

"No," Let replied.

Belnika got up and hurried out of the room.

"Really? But he's right here."

"Musica, I think you might be… stressed," Let settled on. "You should lie down."

"I'm just fine." Musica turned to Haru. "Tell him I'm fine."

"Weren't you ignoring me earlier so you wouldn't look crazy?" Haru asked.

Musica shrugged. "I changed my mind."

Let put a hand on Musica's shoulder. "Please. Lie down."

"What's going on?" Julia, wrapped in a towel with her hair dripping, burst into the room. Belnika and Elie, who had at least hurried into now damp clothes, followed. "Belnika said Musica lost his mind."

"He needs rest. I think the stress from what happened to Haru is affecting him," Let reported. "He claims Haru is standing right next to him."

"He is. Haru, tell them you're right here."

"They can't hear me!" Haru protested.

"Tell them anyway!"

"Musica, what's wrong with you?" Julia demanded.

Musica turned to look at Julia and, with a dead serious look in his eyes, said, "I'm not Musica. I'm Elie."

Julia drop kicked him.

Musica stumbled back. The leg he had been limping on gave out beneath him, and he crashed onto the rug, where Julia kicked him twice more in the head before he went still.

"There. Now he can rest," Julia declared.

Let bent over to confirm that Musica was only unconscious as Shuda and Sieg entered the room.

"What's going on?" Sieg asked. "I heard there was a commotion."

"Musica went crazy," Elie told him. "Then Julia was all WA-POW!" She made a karate chop motion, which was not at all what Julia was all like. "And Musica's resting now."

Sieg nodded in feigned comprehension. Shuda sighed and picked Musica off the floor, then tossed him onto the couch.

-o-

Haru had hoped that when Musica woke up, he might be able to better explain what he'd meant earlier. He wasn't. He had no memory of the incident. He couldn't even say what had happened after the fight with Demon Card had ended.

"Julia must have struck your head too hard," Shuda said when Musica reported as much. "Memory loss isn't uncommon with head injuries."

Musica glanced to Elie, who smiled, oblivious to the implication. Sieg, who chose not to follow Mucisa's gaze, also missed it.

"Did I really claim I was Elie?"

"You said you were seeing Haru too," Elie told him.

Haru stepped so close in front of Musica that his leg was overlapping with the silver claimers. He waved his hands wildly, but Musica didn't react. So people could only see him during fits of temporary insanity? Lovely.

Pouting, Haru sat down on the heart-couch beside Musica. He needed to hurry up and figure out the rules of being a spirit. Lucia probably knew the trick to making people see him already. Haru still didn't know how he'd made the ground intangible. He could probably make Haru fall through the couch if he—

With an oomph, Haru fell through the couch.

Sieg glanced his way, but looked at Musica and Elie before he and Haru could form eye contact.

Was he…? No. That was silly. And even if he could see Haru now, he'd probably go nuts like Musica had. It would be nice if magic users could see him, but if they could, then it would make sense for Elie and Ruby to notice him too? Along with everyone else from the battle the day before...

Speaking of which, where was Ruby? Haru hadn't seen him all morning. If he didn't come soon, he might not get lunch. Or maybe the chef would give him the leftovers from everyone else's meals.

There was a chef. Hired yesterday, so it wasn't too awful, but Sieg still had the money to hire a chef. A very dedicated one, in fact. The man was taking personal orders from everyone and, to Sieg's credit, after getting everyone's requests he asked his employer if he'd like to help. Sieg had, apparently, mentioned that he would be willing to when hiring the man. Sieg considered the request and nodded, getting up and following the chef to the door.

"Sieg, were you injured in the fight yesterday?" Belnika suddenly asked.

Sieg paused and looked back at her. "What?"

"You're limping," she pointed out. "If it's bother you, I can try to heal it."

"Thank you, but I'm alright." Sieg gave her a reassuring smile, or tried to, at least. It came so slowly that you'd almost think he didn't know how to make the expression.

"Did you meet a tough opponent?" Shuda asked. "It's odd for someone to land a hit on you."

"I just got careless while fighting is all."

When no one else pressed, Sieg followed the chef into the kitchen.

Haru watched Sieg as he left. He did have a slight limp. Although there was no obvious damage to his left leg (that could be seen while it was completely covered by his clothes), it seemed as if it hurt him to put pressure on it. It was the exact same as how Musica had moved earlier, even though the silver claimer was walking around perfectly fine now.

And Sieg hadn't been fighting at all. Unless he'd been clumsy some time that morning, then there was no reason he should have an injured leg. The only person Haru could think of who was injured like that…

Was Lucia! Lucia who seemed a lot more adept with this spirit stuff than he was. Lucia who he knew could see him. Was Lucia body snatching his friends?

Determined to put a stop to… whatever Lucia hoped to accomplish by making his friends look wacky to one another, Haru strode through the walls towards the kitchen.

He found the chef inside giving instructions to Sieg. Patronizing instructions. This is how you peel a carrot type stuff. Lucia—if it was Lucia controlling Sieg—looked exasperated to have it explained to him, but held his tongue even when the chef told him that, whatever prebaked rubbish he heated up when he was home alone, he wasn't to in any way distract his new star employee from his art. Haru was tempted to fire the man on the spot, despite not being the one talked down too, the one employing him, or even someone the man would be able to hear.

Without being fired, the chef went to start making Elie's salad and Julia's soufflé (an order that Haru suspected had been made just to be difficult). Sieg, or possibly Lucia, set to work cutting carrots.

"You actually aren't that bad a cook," Haru observed. The slices weren't particularly thin or even, but whoever he was talking too, they weren't taking long to cut them.

His compliment went ignored.

Frowning, Haru crouched down and crawled around the counter, then slipped inside it. The sound of cutting, which echoed in the cabinets beneath the counter, turned hesitant, then returned to normal. Haru counted to thirty then sprang up from inside the counter.

The knife came down squarely between his eyes, and Sieg, who was definitely possessed by Lucia, jumped back, dropped the knife, and swore.

"I knew it!" Haru cried. "You can see me."

Lucia scowled and picked up the knife. He glanced over at the chef, who hadn't looked up at the commotion, then muttered, "My magic started picking you up earlier today," as he returned to cutting carrots.

"Liar."

"Why do you say that?"

"You don't know any magic, Lucia."

The knife froze. A glare to match his scowl formed on Lucia's face. "I think you're mistaken."

"No I'm not."

"I would know if I were Lucia."

"And you'd lie! I don't know what you did to your foot, but Sieg wasn't injured fighting. I was with him since you did whatever it was you did to the ground."

No response.

"Admit it! I won't stop talking until you do! I don't need air. I don't have to sleep. I couldn't eat if I wanted too. You can't touch me while you're in Sieg's body. How did you injure your foot anyway? Did you drop something on it? How long before you became a spirit did it happen? Was it your sword that you dropped? Are you clumsy? I bet you're secretly clumsy. You're really good on the battlefield for someone who trips a lot when no one is looking. What's the trick to hiding that you're—"

"Shut up! I'm Lucia, okay? You got it right."

"You have to answer my question too, or I won't stop. How did you injure your foot?"

Lucia thought about it a moment and decided that, since Haru wasn't going to be able to tell anyone else in the near future, not if he was counting on his possessed friend to tell people about him, then there was no harm in answering. "It's not my foot. It's my ankle."

"I didn't ask what was injured. I asked how."

Lucia shrugged, moved the carrot he was cutting so that it occupied the same space as Haru's chin, and resumed cutting.

"You sicko." Haru stepped out of the counter and stood next to Lucia. "So what do you know about this?"

"Not much. I only learned basic cooking because most people don't decide to join an evil army so they can cook for others."

"Did you really think I was asking about cooking, or are you just trying to piss me off?"

"Yes."

So it was the latter… or it was the former and Lucia was covering it up by pretending otherwise. Haru shook his head and gave up on figuring that one out. "We're both stuck as spirits."

"That would seem to be the case."

"Do you know why?"

"If I did, I'd have found a way to fix it, and be back in my body by now."

"You can't do whatever you did to get into Sieg to return to your own body?" Haru asked. Lucia shook his head, and Haru sighed. He'd really been hoping it was that simple. Although if it was that simple then Lucia would never answer his next question. "How did you get inside Sieg?"

Lucia fumbled with the knife, slicing Sieg's thumb open. He cursed and grabbed a piece of paper towel to wrap around the wound. "What?"

"How did you get inside Sieg?" Haru repeated. "You were inside Musica too, weren't you?"

"Musica?"

"The guy you were inside earlier."

Was that his name? It seemed like trivial information. Lucia decided to forget about it. "Why should I tell you?"

Haru shuffled his feet, a horrible thought striking him. "When you're inside of Sieg, do you hear his thoughts, or is he unconscious?"

"Unconscious," Lucia guessed. "Why would I hear his thoughts?"

"I hear peoples thoughts when I'm inside of them."

When Lucia stared too long, Haru wondered if he'd revealed too much. Lucia, however, had finished contemplating the fact that Haru was suddenly a mind reader and was now focused entirely on the all-important question of how many people he had been inside of.

"Lucia?"

"What is it, Glory?"

"How do you possess people?"

"The same way you read their minds."

"Oh." Haru's shoulders sagged. Between invading people's privacy and having a means of contacting the outside world, he'd much rather have the latter. And although it was good that Lucia couldn't glean the location of the final Sinclair Stone while he was in control of Sieg's body, it was still an issue that he was in control of Sieg's body.

"What are you going to do then?" Haru asked.

Lucia brushed the chopped carrots into a bowl and began to slice bell peppers. "Leave. The sorcerer's body is taller than what I'm used to, but it shouldn't take long to adjust. His magic will come in handy if I need to force my way back into headquarters too. Shakuma or Megido will recognize me and, if not, then Mother will, and that will prove my identity to anyone who might be able to return me to my body." He paused, then added, "Though since you can't even grab my shoulder, it's not like you can stop me now that you know."

"Speaking of knowing, do you know how to use Sieg's magic?"

Lucia froze mid slice. That was something he hadn't thought of.

"I'm sure it's a spell that did whatever this is to us, but everyone thinks I was hit with some magic attack that made me brain dead, and whoever found your body, they might not have noticed that magic is behind you not waking up."

Silently, Lucia acknowledged that it was almost a guarantee that they hadn't. With no proficient magic users in the castle at the time, it may not have occurred to anyone that a spell could be the cause of his coma, and there would be no way to verify it.

"Sieg can help us. If he knows what the spell really did, I'm sure he can figure out which spell it was that did this. If not, then someone in this town in bound to know."

"The people here can help you," Lucia corrected. "I maintain no illusions of them wanting to help me."

"They don't need to know they're helping you," Haru insisted, although it made his stomach turn to say the words. "Get inside of Elie and I'll feed you lines."

"I would love to be inside of Elie, but if what you actually want is for me to possess her then I don't see what good that would do. I couldn't figure out how to use her Etherion any more than I could cast a spell while controlling your sorcerer friend." Unfortunately.

"But if there's anyone who Sieg would think is channeling me, then it would be Elie. Enter her, tell Sieg what's happened, and he'll figure out how to fix us. Once we know the spell, it will be easier for you to get your sorcerer to straighten you out. And they captured a bunch of Demon Card men yesterday. You can take over one and I'll set him free so you have a cover to get back in."

"Sure you will."

"I mean it!" Haru insisted. "I don't want you returned to normal. I don't. But you taking over all my friends is just as bad." Worse, if he did stay in control of Elie long enough figure out how to create an Etherion apocalypse, but Haru didn't voice that idea, lest it grow on Lucia.

And he didn't have to. Lucia considered Haru's motive and found it to be believable. Especially because, although it might not have occurred to Haru, Lucia suspected he could get some devastating results by possessing the Rave Master himself. If he weren't so found of his own body, he may take over Haru permanently.

"Alright." Sieg's body went stiff as Lucia stepped out of it.

Haru took careful note of Lucia's footing, or near lack off. Without a body to support himself, Lucia could barely stand on his injured ankle. It might have been Haru's imagination, but it looked worse than before.

While it made his spirit-skin crawl to even think of it, he put an arm around Lucia's waste and said nothing while the blond scoffed and reluctantly put an arm over Haru's shoulder. No way in hell was Lucia going to make it all the way to where Elie sat without help.

-o-

Sieg had found himself standing in the kitchen, not sure when he'd gone from listening to reports of Musica's odd behavior, or what exactly he was supposed to be doing. The man he'd hired to help him prepare meals for a large group seemed to have regulated him to smaller tasks, and from the disgruntled look he got when he cleared his throat to ask what was going on, he suspected that it wouldn't have gone well if his main concern was what he was supposed to be helping to cook.

He finished chopping the vegetable in front of him and excused himself to go check in on the Rave Master's friends.

Musica was conscious, and being teased for his earlier behavior. Sieg had no memory of Musica coming too. That Musica had no memory of acting strange made Sieg anxious, but he kept a calm face as he sat down on one of the couches and asked about his own behavior. That Haru and Lucia had also chosen to wait on that couch until it was a good time to possess Elie was something he'd never know, nor would he ever be told about how Haru had scampered out of his way while Lucia mocked the Rave Master by hinting that he may take over Sieg's body again just to make him look like a nutcase.

To Sieg's disappointment (and relief) they'd noticed nothing beyond him being quiet.

Lunch came while Sieg was fetching texts to see if he had anything that might reference what had happened. Julia dug into her soufflé and Musica chowed down on lobster while Sieg held a sandwich in one hand and turned the pages of his book with another.

Now Elie had grown quiet which, given his own reported behavior and Musica's earlier that day, made Sieg worry that she might be next. But she just muttered that she was hoping Haru was okay, so they left her alone.

Everyone left Sieg alone too, once he became so caught up in skimming pages that he forgot he was holding onto a sandwich. The rest of the group cleaned their plates and headed down to the basement, where a footman, because the Hart family had one of those, had informed them that there was a bowling alley.

Elie cleared her throat and, when that failed, reached out and pulled Sieg's book away.

Sieg's eyes followed the text until the angle was no longer easy to read from, then looked up to meet Elie's eyes. "Is something the matter?"

"I need to talk to you."

"What is it?" Since there was nothing to distract him from his sandwich, Sieg took a bite after asking.

"I'm Haru."

Sieg paused mid bite, then slowly removed the sandwich from his mouth and studied Elie's expression closely before asking, "Are you now?"

"This is really important. I'm not sure how long I can stay in…" Elie cleared her throat. "I'm not sure how long I can stay inside Elie, so I have to make this fast. I need your help."

"Who was the first person you saw when I trapped you in Altearith?"

"My mom," Elie replied. After a moment she added, "I don't think you ever asked me that. That's a horrible question for identifying me."

"The important part was that you knew I hadn't asked." Which Elie had no way of knowing, if she was messing with him. "How are you controlling Elie?"

"I think it's her magic," Haru in Elie's body guessed with a shrug. Were they taking a second too long to respond? Sieg discounted it as his imagination. Or perhaps a delay in Haru's commands and Elie's reaction.

"So she got in contact with you from beyond the grave?"

"No." Haru looked flustered a moment after he said it. "I-I'm not dead! Honest!"

"You're… not…?"

"No. I don't think I am." He looked down, thinking about it. "My body is still breathing, I mean. Somehow my spirit was separated from it. I don't know how to return to normal."

"So you're not brain dead."

Haru almost cracked a grin before looking horribly offended.

"I see." Sieg rested a finger on his chin. "That does change the situation. I'll ask if anyone knows of a spell that can do that. If Miltz hasn't heard of it, I'm sure he'll know where to find the information."

"Who?" Haru glanced to his left, scowled in a decisively un-Haru-like way, then turned back to Sieg. "I think I'm running out of time. You'll look for the spell that did this?"

Sieg nodded.

"Thank you. I'll be waiting here if you have any news." Haru smiled an awkward, forced smile. Like he was trying to mimic Elie's upbeat grin but wasn't sure what it was like to feel the emotion necessary to look upbeat.

Then Elie went rigid, blinked, looked around, and asked Sieg, "Where did everyone go?"

Memory loss. Sieg suppressed a chill as he made the connection, smiled for Elie, and told her what he'd just learned.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I claim no credit for what Lucia decides to do at the end of the chapter. Someone on ff.net suggested it while reading an older version of this fic.

Although peeved that Haru had possessed him, Sieg had spread the word around town about the nature of the curse afflicting the Rave Master, and spent the rest of the day researching information on spirits in his private library.

He had a private library easily ten times the size of the public one on Garage Island (which, to be fair, had been small). The more Haru learned about Sieg's wealth, the more he wanted to punch the sorcerer. It was entirely unfair that he had a rich family member that was so generous with his funds. And that Sieg hardly seemed comfortable dipping into them meant nothing, given the exsesiveness of his own bedroom.

Sieg's bedroom was two floors. Both parts were the size of the whole first floor of Haru's house. The first had a couch and a TV and a glass door that lead out onto a patio overlooking an outdoor pool, because Sieg's uncle felt the need for an outdoor and indoor pool. A set of stair led up to a three walled room that overlooked the first floor, where Sieg's bed and wardrobe were. Every other piece of furniture in the room was some manner of clock, which, having spent the night in Sieg's room, was beginning to get to Haru and Lucia.

"I will break all of them when I get my body back," Lucia declared when they all started going off, grandfather clocks ringing, cuckoo clocks chirping, little antique clocks playing songs as tiny wooden villagers emerged from them and began to twirl around. "How does he put up with this every hour?" Not to mention the ones that went off every fifteen minutes.

"The ticking is a pain too," Haru said, not because he felt that way (although he did) so much as to try and possibly get along with Lucia, if only just a little. It wasn't like he had anyone else to talk to. The blond was refusing to act as a mouth piece again unless Haru let him stay in one of his friend's bodies for longer.

"If it bothers you, then piss off. You can leave," Lucia pointed out.

His injured ankle, which definitely looked worse than before, was growing increasingly painful. Even with Haru's support, Lucia could hardly stand and walk with it. Even crawling was painful enough that being stationary was better than escaping the clocks, since the movement aggravated the injury. After leaving Elie and discovering that contact with her had worsened the wound, he'd needed Haru to all but carry him away, and Haru had decided to take him to Sieg's room in the hopes that they'd hear about the spell faster that way.

It seemed plausible, since the room for the private library was beneath the second floor of Sieg's bedroom, but Lucia was still bitter about the decision to trap him in a room full of clocks. That possessing Elie was wrecking his ankle didn't make his mood any better. He'd been hoping to take over her again when Haru wasn't looking. It had been so unfair that he'd gotten to wear her skin, but hadn't had a chance to touch her at all.

Lucia seethed about it while he massaged the injury.

"You never did tell me how you got that."

"Will you not shut up if I don't tell you?"

Haru took a moment to process the double negative. "I won't."

Lucia swatted Haru, catching him in the nose and stunning the Rave Master momentarily. "Too bad I can hit you again."

Haru rolled off Sieg's couch and took a few steps back.

"Too bad you can't get up and chase me. You could have, if it weren't for that ankle. Are you going to tell me what you did to it now? Are you? Are you? Are you? Are—"

"Shut up!" Lucia snapped. "I fell, all right? I fell three floors."

Haru had fallen way further than that, but he'd fallen as a spirit. He imagined he wouldn't escape unharmed if he'd taken that great a tumble in his physical body either. Though how Lucia had managed to take such a fall was a mystery he didn't think Lucia would ever provide him with the answer for.

Lucia waited to see if Haru would ask anyway. When he didn't, the blond returned his attention to the wound.

"Does it hurt?"

"No."

"I can carry you to a room without clocks."

"I don't need your pity, Glory. I'm fine on my own."

"Not completely on your own. You need me to make my friends help."

"I could fake being you just fine."

"No you couldn't." Haru stepped forward and pressed his thumbs to the corners of Lucia's mouth, trying to pull them up. "That was an awful smile yesterday, and you looked too angry when I asked you to leave Elie. The only people I make that face at are people harming Elie."

Lucia grabbed Haru's arms and twisted them. Haru squirmed, but couldn't break out of his grip.

"Don't touch me," the blond ordered.

"I'll have to, if you want to leave this room."

Lucia growled, but let go of Haru to acknowledge the fact.

Rubbing sore wrists, Haru said, "You don't want my help getting out, and it doesn't sound like Sieg has found anything yet. We may as well practice having you be me again. Here." Haru beamed. "Try to make this face."

Lucia stared at it. It looked like a really happy expression. What was it that made him feel happy? He summoned fond memories and showed Haru a smile, since it would get the idiot off his back faster. And also he might have been a little bored.

"No. That's a smirk. A smile. Think happy thoughts. N-no! Now you look like you're bearing fangs… that's a smirk again. Smirk. Still a smirk." Lucia tried to force his mouth into the right shape without thinking of anything, and Haru shook his head. "You never smile, do you?"

No. Why should he? Lucia scowled at Haru. Scowling felt so much better.

"Try and think of a really good memory. Whenever I'm feeling down, I think about my sister."

"I'll make a note to kill her too," Lucia told Haru, but Haru seemed to recognize the statement as meant solely to anger him, and kept himself in check. Peeved at the failed attempt to start something, Lucia gave up and tried Haru's advice.

Good memories of taking over Demon Card, of getting rid of those bastards in Mega Unit, of knowing that with him on top of the food chain he was done being abused by others, hadn't produced smiles by Haru's standards. What was Haru's example? His sister? Lucia never had a sister, but he'd had parents once upon a time. A mother and father who doted on him before one was turned into Swiss cheese by the army and the other decided it was easier to adopt a new son than it would be to rescue the one he already had from prison.

Lucia shut his eyes and tried to recall what it had been like to have people love him.

What had that been like? Vague concepts like someone checking under his bed for monsters when they tucked him in, or of a hand holding his cheek when he tripped and cried came to mind, but Lucia didn't feel warmth from them. They were shameful. Memories of his weaker self. Of the person that the Empire had easily tormented for years in their quest to crush.

"Hey." Haru tapped Lucia's shoulder. "Are you okay?"

Lucia's eyes snapped open. The present reformed around him, and he noticed he was tearing up. In front of Haru? At all? He almost wanted to die of embarrassment.

Well, fine then! He couldn't smile, but he could snarl just fine. Lucia grabbed Haru's arm and twisted it again as punishment for trying to make him smile in the first place. Haru yelped when spirit-bone cracked.

Spirit-bone mended seconds later.

Lucia stared at that, feeling sick. Haru healed? Haru fucking healed? How was it fair that the Rave Master recover in seconds while his ankle spited him by continually growing worse?

"If there's one thing that makes this situation bearable," Haru said, "It's that."

Was that another ability Haru got? Like his mind reading. Lucia hissed and looked away, massaging his ankle again in an attempt to lessen the pain.

"I wonder why it doesn't work for injuries you had ahead of time. I guess your spirit has to reflect your body."

Lucia didn't look up, so Haru didn't see the quickly masked look of horror when he thought for a second that he might have somehow transferred the injury to his body. But that was stupid. Haru was stupid, and Lucia needed to make sure the Rave Master's stupidity didn't rub off on him.

Sieg emerged from the private library then. He held a book tight in his hand, one finger marking a page, and walked briskly to the door. Haru got up and followed him, getting into the same spot as Sieg and stepping at the same pace to try and read the man's thoughts as he walked from the room.

Lucia waited. A clock that was running late went off to let him know that 3:00 had come a while back. Another chimed because it was 3:15.

According to most of the clocks, it was 3:17 when Haru came back into the room.

"He found it," Haru said. "Guess who caused this?"

"Some spiteful god who accidentally cursed you while trying to punish me?"

"No," Although it was an amusing guess. Haru wondered if Lucia usually got this sarcastic when robbed of the ability to dominate. "Actually, you did."

"Uh huh."

"It was a spell meant to protect that temple you broke apart after stabbing Hardner." Haru took a seat on the couch next to Lucia and began kicked his legs up over the arm rest. "I guess since we were the only ones to stick around after you decided to do away with the whole structure, we were the only ones the spell managed to catch."

"Hm." Lucia had been figuring the two of them had both been afflicted for a more meaningful reason. Like, destiny kept their lives intertwined and thus they suffered the same fate... or something. But Haru's explanation worked to.

"There's a problem, though."

"It's permanent?"

"No. Well… not for the first ten days. The spell gets stronger the longer it affects someone. Sieg thinks that after ten days it will be too strong for the whole town combined to stop, and there aren't many powerful sorcerers living in any other part of the world. Mildea recruits them."

"Hold on." Lucia turned to Haru. "Shakuma might not be back still, and I don't know if the Demon Lords could undo this. It would take me a day to get back to Demon Card anyway—and I have no idea how many days can pass before it's too much for Shakuma to undo by himself. It may be too late already. If you turn me loose in the body of some nobody from my army and send me back to the castle, I might still be caught by the time limit."

"Don't worry." Haru smiled. It was a nice, happy smile too. Lucia hated him for it. "We'll think of a way to convince my friends to save you as well. Maybe we can convince Sieg that restoring the temple will help, so we need your Dark Bring. You can take over somebody and grab your body while we're at it. Or if that doesn't work, we'll come up with another excuse. I won't leave you trapped as a spirit."

Lucia blinked, sputtered, and pushed himself further back on the couch to put distance between him and Haru. What was that about? Not leaving him? Why would Haru smile while he said that. They were enemies. Even if Haru went around spouting crazy bullshit like how the world was worth saving, or had the nerve to claim they could be friends while holding a sword over someone's neck, he knew they were enemies. He wouldn't just save his enemy.

Did he think them working together counted towards that end-of-war scenario that went through his stupid, fantasy filled head? If that was meant to be some friendly gesture then… well… then Lucia was torn between wanting to puke and considering that maybe, just maybe, he should feel touched.

"You'd just possess me if we didn't get your body back anyway, wouldn't you?" Haru added.

Oh. Never mind. It was Haru being smart for once. Lucia felt like an idiot for not realizing that but, in all fairness, it had been an unlikely possibility.

"Do you mind if I leave you?"

"I'd mind if you stayed."

Haru nodded. Now that Sieg was done holing up in his library, he needed to go wait where he promised he would in case the sorcerer came back with any other news.

-o-

The first magic user Sieg encountered to tell about the curse from the Altar of Birth being destroyed was Elie, who was more than happy to race around town repeating the message to everyone she saw while Sieg went to arrange for the town to be transported to the Mystic Realm.

The town was getting ready to ship out by that evening when Sieg came home to discover that one group Elie had forgot to notify was her own friends.

He still needed to finish making arrangements with the house staff, so he quickly relayed the information to Belnika so she could inform the others.

"We were all there when Lucia destroyed that temple," Belnika told him. "What if one of use falls to the same curse?"

"You already would have," Sieg assured her. "Haru spent longer in the ruins than anyone else, from my understanding. The only other person who might be in trouble… you should be fine."

"Okay. But what if—"

"Sorry. I need to find Haru."

Sieg hurried past Belnika towards the dining room where he'd spoken to Haru before, and where Haru had told him he'd be waiting. Haru was able to possess people as a spirit, and he and Musica had experienced the same symptoms of possession that Elie had. That Haru had been messing with them or attempting to make contact earlier was possible, but Musica had insisted not that he was Haru, but that he saw Haru. Someone else, in all likelihood, had taken over him. And the only other person who Sieg could think might have been hit with the same spell to strand spirits outside their bodies was Lucia.

He stepped into the dining room and said, "Haru, they're loading an airship in the center of town. Get on board. Someone is going to bring your body over from the hospital and we're going to bring you back to the ruins. Hurry. We need to leave before anyone stows away."

And with that he left, not knowing that Haru had been hoping to help a potential stow away.

Sieg returned to his room and threw his things together, while Haru followed and helped Lucia onto the ship. Although Lucia protested—loudly—Haru carried him bridal style. It was the easiest way to keep the blond's injury from getting in the way while he rushed to get on board the airship before they were left behind. If he got his nose broken for his efforts, well, his spirit healed fast anyway.

-o-

No one had been pleased by how fast Sieg had rushed them to take off, but given that they only had five days and an evening left, they could understand the need to get there fast. Lucia probably, hopefully, didn't know. And Sieg had checked everyone he could to make sure they weren't possessed so he didn't think the monster had made it onto the air ship. If the coast was clear, then there was no sense in worrying everyone with the knowledge that Lucia had been in town. Especially since Sieg wasn't entirely sure Lucia had been in town.

Not many people had thought of dinner in their haste to restore the Rave Master. The ship had provisions on it, but it wasn't prepared to feed so many people for more than a day. They'd need to stop some time tomorrow for supplies, but that was fine. Everyone was sure they could make it well within the time limit. The only cause for rush was in case Lucia could have snuck on board.

Sieg was feeling pretty confident about himself when he handed out meals to Haru's friends. They were just pieces of stiff bread and bowls of easy to heat canned soup, but it would have to serve as dinner for the evening. Going around confirming so many people weren't possessed had resulted in whispers about how oddly social Sieg suddenly was. While he didn't particularly care, it did make him feel uncomfortable about how he interacted with others, and he found a private corner to sit in while he ate.

It wasn't too surprising to him when Elie appeared. Sitting on the floor, however, he did notice her bad limp, which even leaning her weight against the wall didn't help with.

"Did you hurt yourself?"

She shook her head. "It's me again."

"Haru?"

Haru nodded.

"Is there anything else you need to tell us?"

"The Altar of Birth…" Haru shifted his feet, grimaced when he put pressure on the left, and straightened. "Is it possible it would be easier to undo this spell if the Altar of Birth were restored?"

"It would, although not too significantly. With the current schedule, we should be able to break the spell without it. If we were to get there on day ten it might bring restoration down from 'theoretically a slim chance' to 'definite and bearable', but it won't be an issue. Besides which, we have no way of fixing the Altar after the number Lucia did to it."

"What if you used Anatasia." Haru glanced to his right after he said it, then quickly back to Sieg.

"What?"

"Harden's Dark Bring? He was able to fix the Altar that way."

Sieg scowled. Why was Haru remembering details like that? The name of one of the Sinclair Stones? Sieg doubted Haru could even name the Dark Bring that Shuda was using. And to suggest they employ a Dark Bring at all… "He was… but we don't need to."

"What if your estimate of how fixable this me is turns out to be wrong? What if we get there thinking we have three days to spare, and it turns out that was our last day to try."

"Then we would waste three days going to Demon Card, robbing Lucia, who likely has it on his person at all times, and trying to get to the Mystic Realm with his army chasing us. Besides which…" Sieg lowered his voice, "I suspect that Lucia is also trapped as a spirit. It's possible he was in Mildea earlier."

"T-that…" Haru stopped, looked to his right, looked back to Sieg, and swallowed.

"You're not Haru, are you? Haru would never encourage we use a Sinclair." Sieg set his bowl of soup down and glared defiantly up at a man who had it in him to kill everyone, and who was inside a body that gave him the ability to do so on a whim. "Lucia, what did you do to Elie's leg."

"Elie's fine." Lucia retorted, scowling back down at Sieg.

"How did you know to get here? Where's Haru?"

Lucia snorted, which sounded odd in Elie's body, and gestured to his right. "Haru's right here."

"Prove it."

Lucia looked at the space to his right, waiting a moment, then told Sieg, "When you rescued him and his friends from the Oracion Six, they then discovered Tan…" He looked to the right again. "Tanchimo?" Back to Sieg. "Tanchimo had a trunk, which things could be stored in." He paused, then spun to face the right. "Whatever that is, there's no way it's a horse."

Convincing enough. "Is it safe to presume Haru is monitoring you because you took over Elie?"

"In a sense." Lucia crossed his arms and leaned back against the wall. "Would you like me to keep relaying messages for Haru?"

"I wouldn't trust anything from your mouth."

"Pity. He can't take over anybody, so it's the only way you'll be hearing from him." A pause. "Oh, shove it. If he figured out who I was this time he could see through the act again."

Sieg shivered. He'd been talking to Lucia before too. No. Beyond that. Haru was telling Lucia how to get past any test of his identity. Haru was helping Lucia pose as himself. Considering that they now knew how to save Haru, that hadn't been a terrible thing at first, but…

"That's fine. If he knows what lines to feed you, he can hear me. All that needs to be communicated is for us to tell him when we're ready to undo the spell, and where he needs to go while we cast it. If he has the good sense to follow me," Sieg glanced in the same direction Lucia did, as it seemed to be where Haru was, "Then there's no need for you to speak for 'him' at all. Now. What did you do to Elie's foot."

"Nothing. Elie's perfectly fine."

"Your spirit and body both need to be at the Altar to be restored, and you have the same time limit as Haru," Sieg told Lucia, hoping that the reason Lucia had yet to slaughter him with Etherion was that he had no idea how to activate Elie's magic. "Unless you told Demon Card what was wrong with you first, then they likely think you're in a coma. Or brain dead. Your spirit is here. Your body is there. We have no obligation to fix that. Now if Elie is fine, then why are you limping?"

Arms still folded, Lucia squeezed his arms so tight that Sieg worried he'd leave them bruised. As it was, the scowl he'd made was already alarming given that it was on Elie's face. But after a moment of internal struggle, Lucia confessed. "It's my own ankle that's injured. Elie's body helps support it when I stand, but it doesn't keep it from hurting. That's why the limp."

"How well can you walk without a host body to support you?"

No response. Just a glare. Sieg guessed that Lucia couldn't get far on his own.

"How did you get the injury? Do wounds from your body carry over to your spirit? You sounded healthy during the Blue Guardian incident."

Another visible struggle, then Lucia said, "I broke it after becoming a spirit."

Broke? That it was something as significant as a broken ankle was almost more interesting than the fact that spirits could break ankles. But more important than that… "Is Haru's spirit wounded?"

While the wording of his question struck Sieg, Lucia snorted and said, "Anything of his I've broken has healed seconds later."

"Interesting…" Sieg placed his chin in his hand and considered the implications.

Lucia waited for Sieg to say anything else. When the sorcerer remained deep in thought, he lowered himself into a sitting position to spear his ankle his continued weight.

"It's possible…" Sieg said finally. "Although you're… determined… charismatic, I suppose is the nicest way to describe you, maybe you have a weaker spirit?"

"What?"

"A weaker spirit," Sieg repeated. "Haru has led a life surrounded by friends, loved ones, and great expectations. Even his most negative experience, the absence of his father, was mended when he met Gale. You, on the other hand, have led a life full of crushing experiences—though that can't be blamed on you. You've had little affection and few positive experiences, and most expectations placed on you are negative, or conditional. As a result, while you may be strong in other aspects, your spirit is weak. Haru's spirit is impossible to leave lasting damage on. He bounces back. But without your physical power to protect yourself, your spirit has been through so much pain already that it can't handle additional damage well. A positive experience, or maybe a good relationship, might help to heal you. Being returned to your body may heal the injury over time. If nothing else, it would prevent further damage."

"Okay. That's nice. Do you want Anastasia or not? I can spare you the trouble of picking who it might corrupt while using it, and it would help to have."

"While you being here also spares us the trouble of having to steal it from you, the rest of your army is still an issue," Sieg informed Lucia. "And more importantly, your injury spares us the trouble of restoring you. If you can't move around without a host body, then you're no threat in your current state. Leave Elie, or I will fetch a sorcerer who can forcibly remove you." It was a bluff, and Sieg hoped that Lucia wouldn't call it.

Lucia didn't. He grimaced, but the expression faded as Elie's body went stiff. She jumped to her feet, looking around and stepping away from the wall. There was nothing wrong with her foot.

"And Haru," Sieg called out, "Do stay nearby. It would be troublesome if we lost track of you."

"Haru again?" Elie asked.

"In a manner of speaking." Sieg picked his soup bowl up and stood. "I have more news. Lets find the others."

-o-

Lucia sat cross legged on the floor, shoulders square, eyes dull, staring at the wall in front of him.

"We'll find a way to make them save you," Haru said. "I'm going to find where Elie's sleeping. Want to come along?"

"I'm fine."

Haru shrugged. "I'll check in on you in the morning, okay? I still think you're a threat, and I owe you anyway."

Lucia didn't respond, so Haru left.

Alone, Lucia stared at the wall and wondered what he should do next. Anastasia was the best idea they'd come up with, and now that Sieg knew he was the one body surfing, he doubted any plan would work. They didn't want him recovering. They only cared about Haru. Keeping him out of his body was bonus. In fact, they'd probably find a way to dump his spirit in the middle of nowhere just to prevent him from taking over anyone else. He'd be all alone again…

They only cared about Haru?

…

Ah. Yes, that might work. But he'd need to do it right from the get go. If they could force him out of bodies, he didn't want to blow what was likely his last chance.


	5. Chapter 5

Elie was the first one to see it the next day. She woke up bright and early. Full of energy and ready to help save Haru. Her energy was in no way deflated when she stepped out of the girls' bunk room and saw Haru was in no need of saving. He was walking off towards the main deck. He was… he was okay!

"Haru!" she squealed, and ran for him.

Haru looked back and gave a slight, unconfident smile. "Hey, Elie. I need you to do something for me."

"Wait! I need to tell the others first!"

She didn't know where the boys' room was, so she only woke all the women she could find, shouting, overturning beds, shaking people who took too long to return from dreamland. Most stared blankly at first, but as what she said sank in they poured from the room to see if it was true.

Haru was entering the main deck as they spotted him.

The crowd followed, curious as to how he'd restored himself, but when a woman called out for the Rave Master to wait, Haru broke into a run.

Baffled, most stopped. But Elie, Belnika, Julia, and a handful of women from Mildea ran after him.

Haru looked back and smirked, picking up speed. He had a slight limp, and would occasionally stumble putting either foot down, but the only girl in the group who could claim to be an athlete was Julia, and he quickly left all but her behind.

Julia caught up as Haru threw open a door leading to an outer deck. She grabbed his shoulder as he tried to step outside and said, "Haru, what are you doing? How did you wake up?"

Haru twisted from her grip and ran across the deck. Julia followed, but dug her heals in and stopped as Haru sprang over the safety rail. His feet landed on the edge of the deck as he held to the rail, dangling over a very long fall, eyes daring her to come closer.

"Haru?"

The rest of the women caught up then. Haru's gaze passed over Belnika, lingered a moment on Elie, then stopped on the Mildean women. "How many of you did the sorcerer speak to last night?"

A painful silence, save for the sound of the wind, fell on the deck as the realization sank in. "Lucia," Julia hissed. "If you can enter bodies as you please, go back to your own!"

"Can't." Lucia leaned back. "I don't suppose any of you can force me out of your friend?"

The women shook their heads, none of them willing to bluff and have Lucia call them on it. One particularly careless girl asked, "Is that possible?"

Lucia filed that reaction away for later.

"Sieg says Glory's spirit can't be damaged, but I know for a fact that his body can. You can't stop me." He let go with one hand. Thank God Haru's body was strong enough to hold on with only one. Lucia wanted this to be s theatrical as possible while keeping himself alive. Even if his spirit could survive being inside a dying host—which he had no plans of testing—he was going to need Haru's body intact for this to work.

"Why are you doing this?" Elie asked.

"I need something. And you aren't providing it willingly. To restore Glory, you need his body and spirit. Same with me, except my body isn't here, and I'm a little worried that Demon Card may lack the magic power even if they had both my body and spirit. So." He loosened his grip. "Glory's body won't make it intact with you lot to the Altar of Birth unless mine does too."

-o-

It had taken some skillful lying on Julia's part to not only get Lucia back on the safe side of the rail, but also far enough so that the spell casters who had come to see the commotion could put a barrier up around the deck before he'd have the chance to run back and jump.

Lucia took one look at the barrier, smiled at the growing crowd, and walked back inside, pushing away anyone who tried to grab him as he went.

"Is there any other point he could jump from?" Belnika asked.

"Not once we finish putting a shield over the windows. We only need a few more seconds," A sorceress told her.

A few seconds and Haru's body would be safe, but Lucia could still endanger anyone on the ship. Julia hurried inside, spotting Lucia just as he walked around a corner.

When she rounded the corner to grab him, he was holding a knife to his arm.

-o-

Two thwarted suicide attempts and one near failed prevention later, negotiation began in a war room near the ship's cockpit. Since it was Haru's body, regardless of who was making it move, Belnika healed the gash on Lucia's arm and checked to make sure he was done bleeding from the mouth while Miltz laid out the specific ways in which they were willing to assist Lucia.

The ship had needed to turn almost a hundred-eighty degrees when the pilot learned they'd be going just a tad bit out of the way to retrieve Lucia's body. Although Lucia had intended to keep a serious face while negotiating for the group to collect his body, he couldn't help but snicker when Haru was thrown off balance from the sudden turn. Unsure if he'd fall through the wall or not, the Rave Master went into a state of absolute panic as he frantically tried not to slide across the floor.

Too bad the wall caught him in the end. It would have been hilarious if Haru actually fell through. Although considering that Haru recovering seemed to be a requirement for Lucia's recovery, he'd have to let everyone know they'd dropped their precious hero's spirit somewhere in the wasteland below.

The deal they settled on was made with the understanding that even if Haru was restored, Lucia could still possess him. He could possess Haru's empty shell and everyone else's already inhabited bodies, so it was assumed that he could overpower Haru too. Haru claimed he could resist Lucia's control, but only Lucia could hear him, and even if Lucia did believe Haru to a certain degree, he wasn't about to share that with everyone.

Since Lucia would still take over Haru and kill him from inside if Haru was the only one restored, restoring Lucia as well was a necessity. But not one they'd take free of caution. Haru would still be restored first. Sieg assured him that the curse could be undone in rapid succession, and Haru wouldn't even have a minute lead on Lucia, which meant there likely wouldn't be enough time for Haru to try and take him down. Not that he couldn't take the silver claimer or one of the Rave Master's other friends hostage if possessing Haru himself failed. Lucia would be bound in chains when he was restored. That wasn't anything Lucia couldn't break out of—especially if they were careless enough to leave the Sinclair with him—but that too he wasn't about to share.

"So our main problem," Sieg concluded, "Will be retrieving your body. I don't suppose you can leave Haru's alone while we do that?"

"No." Lucia rubbed his ankle. "It's easier to move in this body than it is without one."

Sieg pursed his lips. He hadn't mentioned the bad ankle to anyone else. No need to make them relax their guard. He was pretty satisfied with his theory of how a spirit broke its ankle, but the implication of Haru's body easing the pain was… He shook his head. Haru and Lucia were of about equal strength. If Lucia could hide his problems behind his power before, then he could use Haru's to the same end. Just thinking that Haru's body helped would probably make it all the more helpful to the blond.

"Very well. Where would your body be?"

"If they even moved it, then there's a small medical wing on the east side of the castle," Lucia said. "I doubt they know what's wrong with me, and the doctor we recruited is neurotic, so they probably left me in my room and brought their equipment in there in case moving me would cause more harm."

"And your room is…?"

"On the fourth floor. It looks out at one of the side towers."

Sieg sighed. "Could you draw us a floor map?"

"Of the whole place? No. I could make a rough sketch of the first few floors, and some details of the ones above that, but I can't vouch for their accuracy. I didn't use most of the building, and I only know as much of the layout as I do because Haja expected me to be involved with organizing the guard."

Let's ears perked up. "Will you show us the security as well?"

"I'll have to change it afterward," Lucia grumbled. "Yes. I can add that to the map."

He sat, waiting for anyone else to pipe in.

When no one thought of anything else to ask, and when Lucia didn't raise any questions, Miltz pointed across the room and said, "We don't keep the ship stocked with paper and crayons, but there are pencils, and many of the maps are past there time so it's no harm if you draw on the back of them."

Lucia rose from his seat and walked in the direction Miltz had indicated, but something strange happened. Without anything to trip him or the ship hitting turbulence, Lucia stumbled, flailed, and fell face first.

The perfect chance for a moment of awkward silence was ruined by Elie laughing.

"Are you… normally clumsy?" Sieg dared ask. Could Lucia be a klutz off the battlefield? He seemed so sure footed while fighting.

"Shut up," Lucia grumbled. He pushed himself into a sitting position and glared at the bluenet. "Haru's shorter than me. I'm not used to the difference in height."

"You can't think to compensate for it? Even if you have to walk a little slower…"

"He's not that much sorter. At least when I took over you, you were tall enough that I always noticed it."

Ignoring the uncomfortable noise Sieg made, Lucia stood and walked more cautiously towards the maps, but nearly tripped again as he turned around after grabbing them. Running before he'd managed to more or less get into stride with Haru's body, but without the adrenaline or the ability to go long distances the same direction to fall into that pace, he was struggling.

"You can stay in Haru's body while we collect yours," Julia decided. "It should provide for some good comic relief."

"I could strangle you."

"Without tripping?"

Lucia growled and dropped his art supplies on the table. In all truth, with all his fumbling he probably couldn't outwrestle Elie until he got a better grasp on Haru's proportions, which he wasn't sure he wanted to do. Too long in Haru, and he might have trouble with his own body when he got it back.

-o-

Halfway through Lucia drawing his first map, Sieg deemed it crap and requested he redraw it with straight lines. Sieg then learned that Haru's body had the muscle to throw wadded paper hard enough to bruise its target, but at least Lucia started drawing decent maps after that.

The firsts floor was wide and open. A large thrown room took up most of it, with corridors on either side and smaller rooms breaking off. Lucia only knew which ones were the training rooms. The others he had no idea as to the function of, although he was sure they had windows. He knew all the easy entrances and how many guards were stationed near each, as well as when patrols went by the less likely break-in points. "Although given half the idiots we've taken in, I doubt the guards are running on schedule," He added while showing everyone the map.

The next two floors were more of the same, although now there was supposed to be at least two men standing guard at any reasonable entry point. The throne room had a high ceiling by virtue of taking up the space several floors above it. The hallways of floors two and three overlooked the throne room, and even if they didn't have as many guards Lucia didn't consider either hall to be much good for sneaking down. Thinking of the many suggestions he'd received that he sleep in at least until sunrise, he added, "I've never had much success going down them unnoticed, that is."

"Why would you try?" Musica asked.

"Not your business. Floor four is where the guard starts to relax." Lucia said, smoothing out the next map. "There's only two patrols, late in the morning and in the evening. They're small. Just to look for anyone hiding who might have snuck past everyone else and relaxed after that. Of course, even if not everyone is on guard duty, men are expected to keep their weapons with them. Plenty don't, but anyone who regularly goes through the same parts of the building as me follows that rule, so a lot of people on the fourth floor could still pose a threat."

"You must be a fun boss."

Lucia swung his arm out and smacked Musica in the stomach, then resumed showing details of the floor as if he hadn't just reduced someone to a curled up, gasping mess on the floor.

The fourth floor map was splotchy. Lucia knew the main halls, the stairs, the location of his room, the kitchen, and where one of his generals used to sleep, but that was it. He hadn't needed to find weak spots to post guards at, so he hadn't troubled himself with looking around. The fifth floor he knew one corridor through, although he could say where that corridor broke off to lead to several separate towers, one of which his body may have been moved to. The sixth he only knew a corridor of. No break off points. All the little wing beyond that were a mystery to him. He'd been through the whole building at least once, and insisted his sense of direction was good enough that he could find his way around, but he didn't have a strong enough idea to draw it. The attic he'd seen recently, and felt familiar enough with to describe, though he hadn't wasted a map on it.

"It looks like out easiest way in would be from above."

"Obviously, there are men on the roof." Lucia snorted, offended by the suggestion that he wouldn't have thought of that. "There are plenty of flat surfaces to place them on. They're mostly for surveillance, but guns are set up there for them to try and shoot anything down. There's also a wall around the place. No one outside it, but a few men on top to sound alarms. And there are men stationed between the wall and the castle, although I didn't have much to do with that. Haja set them up mid construction, and it looked decent to me so I never messed with it."

"What's the terrain?" Shuda asked.

Amazingly, Lucia had very little idea. He knew it a fairy flat area, save for what he said was a ledge near the castle. He knew there were rocks here and there. Probably some you could hide behind, although he hoped his men had the sense not to let people. He'd never felt he needed to rely on terrain to win, though. Sure, it could be an advantage, to a marksmen, maybe. For a lone swordsman he didn't care as long as it was easy to charge at and engage the enemy. If they had the high ground, then he could swing at their feet.

Sieg bit back a comment about charisma being Lucia's only contribution to Demon Card. He'd nearly subjugated the planet when his father and grandfather had more experience and far less success, so clearly Lucia was doing something else right.

"What would be the easiest way to slip past the guard?" Let asked.

"Yes. I do deal with problems in my castle's security by hoping they'll go away if I ignore them."

"Sorry I asked."

"You should be."

"You really have no ideas?"

Lucia shrugged. "The ledge is a pretty steep one. I suppose it's a cliff, actually. Ocean below and everything. I wanted more men on the wall there, but Haja and Deep Snow though it it was secure enough. The sun rises from the other side of the castle, so it seemed like the best place to sneak past the watch to me. If I had to pick, I'd say it's the easiest area to avoid notice when sneaking in, but I did give all the men who are regularly stationed there Dark Bring, so it's the worst place to be caught."

"So we don't want to bring a klutz," Julia, who had positioned herself far from Lucia, said.

Lucia glared.

"We'll work it out," Sieg said. "Lucia, thank you for providing this. If it's possible, we'll contact the resistance and see if Julius has any more information he can provide."

"Let him have his beauty sleep," Lucia said with all the consideration of someone who liked to kick puppies. "He's useless otherwise."

"We should reach Demon Card by morning," Sieg said. "I'd like this taken care of by evening, if possible, so I'd like a solid plan tonight. If you have nothing more to contribute, please wait in Haru's room. I don't think anyone will feel much like helping if you make them anxious by wandering about."


	6. Chapter 6

Lucia was midstride early the next morning when the ship landed. The sudden jerk as they touched down sent a wave of pain through his leg and made him stumble. He didn't know who snickered, but he'd already determined that there would be no survivors when he came back to Mildea for the Last Physic stone Haja had lost. Whoever it was, they would be punished in due time.

Insisting he make himself in some way useful, Lucia had been tasked with helping guard the ship. The inside of it. With him apt to stumbling, particularly when something agitated his wounded ankle, no one had thought it a good idea to set him in a wide open battle ground, and everyone had agreed that asking him to break into Demon Card and fight his own best men was a terrible idea. Also, something about Haru's body being an obvious target, but Lucia hadn't paid much attention to that part. He was placed by the main entrance to the ship and asked to knock out anyone who might get past the sorcerers standing guard outside.

It was going to be a boring day. And it was just his luck that this was the one day of his life where everyone agreed with him that you could start your morning any time after midnight. He glanced up at the clock. Four a.m. Hopefully Haru's friends didn't take too long.

-o-

It was going to be an exciting day.

Musica tapped his spear on the dirt, waiting for the people of Mildea to finish prepping the Rune Wings. Once the small aircrafts were up and running, the mission could begin. Sure the lack of ceiling walls or even a seatbelt on the vehicles made them look a little dangerous, not to mention that you needed magic to fly one, so he was screwed if he ended up on his own, but he trusted whoever he was assigned to be able to fly it.

After a near miss where someone tried assigning him Ruby, and a near score where he almost got to ride with a hot sorceress, he ended up on a Rune Wing with Miltz.

"You're not going to fall asleep flying this thing, are you?" Musica asked.

"Not on your life."

Musica looked around at the other sorcerers. Twenty Rune Wings had been lined up, Julia, Let, and Shuda having been paired with the men who would be flying them. Belnika had her own, and Elie wouldn't be coming. She'd wanted to do whatever she could to help Haru, but even Lucia had been unable to point out the stupidity of letting her walk into Demon Card headquarters.

"Hold on," Miltz warned. "It will be time for takeoff any second now."

Hold on to what? Miltz was short and thick. Musica wasn't sure he could comfortable lean over and wrap his arms around the man. He looked old too. If he squeezed too tight, could he bruise the geezer?

"Hold on!" Miltz ordered.

"Just gimme a—"

They took off.

Musica yelled as the Rune Wing almost flew out from under him. As it was, he nearly fell off completely. When the vehicle shot out he flipped over and had to grab the seat before it was too far out of reach, clinging for dear life as he dangled off the end. As everyone flew down past the ledge they would use sneak up on the Demon Card castle and turned in the direction of their target, he struggled to keep his grip.

"Hey old man! Can't you slow down?"

"We can't waste any time. According to Lucia's schedule, patrols should be starting soon."

Musica grunted and fought the force of the wind rushing past to pull himself back onto the seat. As he got one foot back on the Rune Wing, they turned sharply up. Musica slipped and resigned himself to riding without his butt in the chair for the rest of the trip. He could see the wall approaching, and at the speed Miltz was taking him, it couldn't be too long.

Maybe he would have been better off going with Ruby.

-o-

While Musica was off having his little brush with death, Haru broke into the castle ground in a much more low effort way. He walked through the walls.

Upon getting inside, he immediately noticed that Lucia's map had left out a few important details, like all the other buildings between the castle and the wall. Demon Card's headquarters looked like a… it was a kingdom. Lucia had made himself a kingdom to run.

No. Haru corrected himself. Lucia didn't run a kingdom. There was no way he could find the attention to devote to the ins and outs of that. Lucia led an army. An army that someone had decided to make a kingdom for after noticing that they had royal blood in their midst. Someone else in Demon Card handled domestic upkeep while Lucia was off campaigning for world domination or whatever his end goal was.

Did that make Lucia a figurehead? Probably not. Only to whatever degree he allowed it. For as completely apathetic as he'd been to nearly everything the past few days, Haru was willing to bet that Lucia had a lot more drive when he was mobile. A lot more. Just look at what he'd done since finding he could take over Haru's body, not to mention the change he'd brought to Demon Card since taking over.

Lucia didn't run a kingdom, but he did own one, and they'd have to navigate through it to get his body.

Everyone who still had a body crossed over the wall and landed several minutes later, cursing under their breath as they made the same discovery that Haru had. There was no concise layout to the buildings. No easy rows to sneak up to reach the castle. It almost looked unplanned, but things got progressively taller towards the castle, so it was always more defensible than what territory invaders had passed.

"Split up," Shuda decided. "We'll meet at the north end of the castle like we planned, but if there's no easy path there, then it's best we not all hit the same roadblock."

Without forming any particular groups, people began running around buildings, weaving towards the castle. Haru followed after Musica, Let, and a sorcerer he didn't recognize, figuring they'd be among the fastest to reach the castle. Julia was waiting for them when they arrived, but no one else had obviously gone through yet.

"I got it open," she gestured to one of the windows that, from Lucia's plans, had sounded easiest to take out the guards near. "The man in here's asleep. Be careful as you come in."

She crawled through, then Let, the sorcerer, and Musica. While the first three quickly filed out of the room, Musica stayed behind a moment to bind and gag the man.

The entry route as secured as it could be, Musica, followed by Haru, peered out into the halls and saw that the other three were already out of sight. Cursing, Musica tried to recall Lucia's maps. They'd come in from the north, so the closest set of stairs was…

Left, but Musica turned right, and found himself in the throne room before he remembered the proper direction.

The second floor patrol was passing as he reached the top step, and both he and Haru held their breath and pressed against the wall of the stairway as the men went by. The first man passed without so much as a glance, but the second paused and looked their way.

"We're only supposed to keep the stairs by the front doors unlocked. Someone left this door open all night."

"Best time to do it. If Lucia were awake, he'd flay anyone who made a mistake like that." The guard chuckled. "He'd be waking up right about now too, most days."

"That's the one blessing in this. Someone must have left it on purpose. Having just one path open during the night is such a pain. I don't know why he insists on the security. Only an idiot would break into a building with Lucia Raregroove in it."

"Or someone who heard he's sick."

"Best follow procedure, then, huh?"

The second guard walked towards the door. Musica sucked in his gut—just in case it made him any flatter—and slowly dragged his hand up his side so he'd be able to grab his silver fast.

The guard reached out past Musica, gaze locked on the door as he grabbed it and swung it shut.

Musica breathed a sigh of relief and pressed his ear to the door, waiting for the sound of the guards to fade away. For good measure, he even counted to fifty afterward before grabbing the handle and finding that it was indeed locked. Not a problem. He bent down and grabbed in silver, molding it into a basic key and wiggling it into the keyhole to get a feel for the exact shape he needed.

The door clicked, and Musica's stomach dropped. He hadn't gotten the right key shape yet. If the door was clicking—

It swung open, smacking him in the face and sending him tumbling down the stairs.

"Aw, fuck. Sorry, sir, I didn't realize… you…"

Musica was too disoriented to notice, but Haru could clearly see the look of realization on the young evil soldier's face as he realized he hadn't hit a comrade. "Intruder! We have an intruder!"

Musica swore and tried to get to his feet, but he'd hit his head harder than he thought, and the room tilted when he tried to hurry up the stairs to stop the man. Morphing his spear, he tried to stretch it out to hit the idiot before he could alert too many people, but he missed twice before the man realized to move further out of reach.

Whether Lucia was giving orders or not, Musica was pretty sure of what would happen to him if he were caught. As soon as he felt pretty steady, he ran back downstairs. He had to get out. But he couldn't ruin it for everyone else, if he already hadn't. No revealing how he got in or leading Demon Card back to the Rune Wings.

Recalling Lucia's crummy maps as best he could, he ran for the front doors. They were impractically large and heavy, and he cursed Lucia and Julius and everyone else involved in their making as he threw his weight against them and slowly pushed them open. The cries of intruder were echoing down the halls, and though he was refusing to look back, he could hear people not far behind.

He raced out as soon as the doors were open wide enough, running through the buildings around the castle and towards the wall. Lucia had mentioned where the gates for the wall were when Sieg pressed him, but since they were flying over it, Musica hadn't memorized that detail.

Looked like they'd have he'd have to go over again.

A siren went off. People began peeking out of the buildings. Some stepping out already prepared to fight, like Lucia expected them to be. Damn him. Damn him for making this so hard, and damn him for making them come in the first place.

Turning his silver into a grappling hook, he tossed it to a roof and pulled himself up. The men on his heels and the men prepared to block him both shouted as he dodged both groups and began vaulting from rooftop to rooftop, still aiming for the wall.

When he got close enough, he extended the silver as long and thin as he dared and leapt over. If his shoulder clipped the edge of the wall while he sailed over it, then fine. At least he hadn't gone splat on the side of the wall. On the other side, he tried to use his silver claiming to slow his fall, but still landed hard and needed a moment to stead himself.

"Open the gates! Fire! Stop him!"

No time to get his footing. He had to run.

-o-

It was a bittersweet moment for Lucia. On the one hand, his guards had successfully stopped a team of intruders. He had grossly underestimated them and their ability to succeed period, and it was nice to know there was more competence than he'd hoped in the castle. On the other, this was the one time he'd needed them to be incompetent.

"Eight of us are missing," Shuda said to conclude his report. "Lucia, if we get you back to normal, you are to let those men free."

Once he had his body back, there was nothing to negotiate, or hold him to old promises. And missing didn't mean they were still alive. Lucia made a noncommittal noise.

"I'm sorry," Musica muttered.

"If it had to happen, then it was best it did before too many people were trapped inside," Shuda told him. "As it is, we'll have to hope that Julia, Let, and the others escape detection and break out tonight."

"Assuming they don't tighten security," Lucia pointed out. "If the silver claimer tied a man up then they know where you got in from, and after everyone ran back to the Rune Wings they would have figured out you took advantage of the spot where everyone else insisted no one would try to break in from."

"I'm sure you feel validated knowing the spot you thought needed to be strengthened was a weak point, but it's one you thought to exploit, not us," Shuda snapped. Not that Lucia hadn't made a good point, but he wanted the brat to shut up already. "Unless you know what changes they'd make to security, then stay out of this."

"I don't even know who's in charge right now."

"Then stay out of this."

"What about Haru?" Lucia asked.

Sieg cleared his throat. "Unless you want to release his body for us—"

"Like hell." Lucia gestured to where Haru's spirit stood. "If the castle has wards against spirits I've never heard of it. If he wants to see what the security looks like, he can tell me and we work out a new plan."

"But if he misses something important because he came at the wrong time in the guards' schedule—"

"Not an issue." Haru read minds.

"Wait," Musica said. "You can just tell us what Haru is saying?"

"No. I offered to do something I'm not capable of."

"You can tell us. Why hasn't Haru tried to communicate at all?" Musica asked.

"Actually, he hasn't shut up since this meeting started. If he doesn't stop telling me things he wants said soon, I'll go deaf. That it's his own ears he's talking off has done nothing to stop him."

For everyone but Lucia, who could hear Haru threatening to really make him go deaf, the ensuing silence was horribly awkward.

Someone coughed.

"Will Haru survey the castle?" Sieg asked

Lucia nodded.

More silence.

"Shut up!" Lucia snapped suddenly, looking to his right. "If it bothers you so fucking much, then go look already. The sooner this is over, the sooner you can tell them yourself."


	7. Chapter 7

Haru didn't need sleep, and Lucia didn't need to do anything important the following day, so the two stayed up late into the night going over the maps the blond had drawn, reviewing the layout and where people who knew changes to the security might be. Lucia also gave his best guess on how security might have been changed, but not all of it matched up with what people had reported seeing, so Haru would still need to go and confirm it.

Around three in the morning Lucia decided to get more involved. Dreading the same boredom as the day before, he left Haru's body with the intent of possessing one of the Demon Card men patrolling the outside of the wall. For his troubles he was rewarded with the painful reminder that his ankle was badly broken. After having spent the past few days enjoying the comforting effect that Haru's body had on him, he could hardly function in a host body where every step brought a fresh wave of agony.

At least he had possessed the good sense not to deposes Haru a distance from his next potential victim. Still, the few steps he'd tried taking in his new host, who ran for it after Lucia left him, were difficult to cover on his own. Haru ended up helping him back to his meat puppet of choice.

"You know," Lucia said as he stretched and readjusted to being in Haru's body, "If you have left me behind, that would have taken care of a serious threat."

"It wouldn't have killed you to crawl five feet, Lucia."

"Yes it would have. You were watching. A king does not crawl before those below him."

"That's nice."

"Also, crawling hurts almost as bad as walking," Lucia confessed. As if to rob his claim of any validity, he chose just then to test placing his weight on his injured side. In Haru's body it still ached, but it felt no worse than putting pressure on a bruise. "I honestly don't get why you would help. You do know we're enemies? Aren't you worried about what I'll do once I have my body back?"

"I don't just worry about you as an enemy," Haru told him. "Don't kill my friends while I'm gone."

"No promises. But it's unlikely I will. Most of those idiots are necessary for me to get my own body back."

Haru squared his shoulders and stepped forward to argue that one, but seeing the amused light in Lucia's eyes, decided not to take the bait. "I suppose the action matters more than the motive, with you."

"I need my body present for me to get my own body back too, so move it."

"Alright. Geeze." Haru threw his hands up in surrender and left Lucia to himself.

In truth, Haru would have liked to have Lucia there. It would have been nice to have someone who knew their way around the castle and, more importantly, could provide conversation. But if Demon Card was on high alert, then seeing Haru('s body) break in wouldn't end well, and Lucia could hardly function with another host. Haru half suspected that once they were returned to normal, Lucia wouldn't be able to function even in his own body.

Well, if it couldn't be helped, it couldn't be helped. All on his lonesome, Haru walked through the walls around the Raregroove Kingdom and, to make the trip a bit more interesting, didn't trouble himself with walking around any of the buildings between him and the castle. It was still early in the morning, and most people were still asleep but it was fascinating to see how normal the insides of most of the buildings were. If Lucia wanted to stop being a terror, maybe secure a bit more land for himself and just make his kingdom a world power rather than a world conqueror, then maybe Raregroove could be a pretty normal place.

The idea of anything involving Lucia being normal made Haru snicker. He was still grinning at the thought when he reached the castle.

More people were lined around it this morning, most trying not to nod off. As he slipped through them, Haru caught one man thinking that Lucia himself was better suited for standing guard at such an ungodly hour. Remembering his mission, Haru stepped back out and spied on the man's thoughts.

He listened for a while, and moved between two or three other guards, but it was no good. They knew their own assignment, and little more. One man knew roughly how many people were around the castle gates, but no one knew the entire plan.

Lucia had said that there was a woman in charge of knowing as much as possible and reporting it all to him, and even if she wasn't involved in security, she would the details learn in case he wanted them when he recovered. From what he'd heard listening to the guards out front, it seemed that Demon Card was still optimistic about the odds of Lucia waking up.

The woman's room was a floor up from Lucia's. Lucia knew the location from having gone to her with questions on occasion. Haru set that as his destination, found the room where Musica had broken in from the other day, and located the stairs from there.

As he passed the fourth floor, it occurred to him that it might be worth knowing for sure if Lucia's body was in his room or not, and if it wasn't, then he could save the others time by finding it first.

He found Lucia's room easily enough. It was both surprisingly lavish and less decorated that Haru had expected. After that whole "blood of kings" thing Lucia had brought up at the Star Vestige, Haru had imagined Lucia as the overly opulent sort, and the castle didn't diminish that image, but having spent some time with Lucia, a number of things in the room seemed less practical than he'd have thought Lucia would prefer. The bed didn't need to be too large. The decorations on the furniture were trivial. The wall paper (or was that pattern painted on?) was unnecessary. It was almost like Lucia was… a contradictory.

Like that was a shock.

Most surprising was how well Haru could see everything. Haru's eyes had adjusted to the dark, but light came into Lucia's room from the balcony. Outside, he could see another tower nearby, well lit even at the early hour, and bright enough for some of the glow to make it to Lucia's room. It was like an obnoxious nightlight you had to walk to another tower to turn off instead of just unplugging the unholy thing from the wall. Idly, Haru wondered if Lucia had attempted to move to a different room, or if it had been too much trouble just to have a dimmer sleeping area.

Before he left, he checked Lucia's body, just in case the universe felt like being fair and letting him possess the blond. It didn't, but Haru considered it a worthwhile effort. He hadn't seen Lucia's sleeping face before, and might never see again. It was a shame he had no spirit camera. The photo would have been fun to try and tease Lucia with. Hopefully, Musica would have the same thought when they recovered Lucia's body.

By that time the sun was rising, which Haru could see perfectly from Lucia's balcony. No wonder the blond hadn't changed rooms.

Better hurry. The faster he got the security plans, the faster they could get Lucia's body, and the faster he and Lucia could return to normal.

Lucia knew how to get to the intel woman's room from his own, so by recalling his directions Haru got their easily. The woman was just waking up, and her mind was hazy. It took some digging for Haru to find security information, and even after locating it, he waited until she was fully awake before he felt satisfied with its accuracy.

On his way down, Haru recalled one last thing that he absolutely wanted to know before reporting back. Let and Julia were still missing. Since they had been operating on the assumption that Lucia would be on the fourth floor, it didn't make sense for them to go any higher. He went back to Lucia's room, then began to systematically inspect each room, focusing on any place were a whole person might be able to hide.

They weren't anywhere on the fourth, or third, second, or first. He started working back up, and found them on the sixth, between a small kitchen and a pool. Neither had been on Lucia's map, so he committed the location and path to memory.

Haru would have traded anything for the chance to tell them help was on the way. Neither was acting terrified, but Let didn't look as calm as normal, and Julia held herself so rigid that a slight breeze might snap her. He took some time to make sure they were okay, as was relieved to see they would be able to survive for at least a little while. When no one was around, one or the other would sneak out and retrieve whatever they could hold in their hands from the kitchen. With their heightened senses, they seemed to have a pretty good sense of when it was safe to sneak out. Haru trusted them to manage until rescuers got there.

They couldn't hear it, but he told them that everything would be fine. As he finished the message, he noticed the walls quivering. Let and Julia both jumped up and looked around, then settled a moment later, one of them commenting that it had been an earthquake.

His friends back on the ship would probably be safe, but there was always the chance that something had gone wrong. Haru hurried back.

-o-

Haru confirmed the location of Lucia's body for everyone, and explained where all security had been enhanced. Everywhere previously under guard was still under guard, and most places not previously under guard were now under guard as well. It took some coaxing to get Lucia to get up and act on the information. When he finally stood to gather paper and pencil, his limp, Haru thought, seemed prominent again. Even with Haru's body negating some of the damage.

After Lucia drew up a new map showing where they would face opposition, everyone decided that stealth could go to hell and started working out plans for a frontal assault. The attack force was largely comprised of magic users, so Miltz insisted that it was his time to lead, and took over planning the attack.

Already familiar with the idea of sitting on the sidelines, Lucia retreated to a meditation room. He had been hoping for some quiet alone time, but Haru followed him. When Lucia got comfortable in a pile of cushions he threw together and tried to close his eyes for a minute, Haru sat down in front of him and started to talk.

"Do you really feel safe sleeping in front of me?"

No. Hearing how hopeful Haru was when he asked that, Lucia almost wanted to admit to his unease just to see if it would disappoint the little pest. "It's not like you can do me any harm in your current condition."

"Maybe not, but the things I learn once I have my body back might come back to haunt you?"

"Like what. The sorcerer already knows about my ankle, and if you can read my thoughts, I have yet to see you try."

Haru tried, but the results came back blank.

"Maybe you don't think."

"Maybe you're too thick to realize your spirit trick doesn't work on another spirit," Lucia snapped. "Leave me alone."

Haru shook his head. "Let me see your ankle."

Lucia lifted his left foot.

"That's my ankle."

With a much suffered sigh, Lucia moved away from the cushions. Haru's body went rigid, then slumped onto the floor as Lucia's spirit left it. He pushed himself back into the cushions with much caution, then showed Haru the injury.

"Better?"

"Much. Hold still."

Lucia cringed when Haru put both hands around the swollen area, but slowly relaxed as he realized it caused no pain. In fact, the gentle circles Haru made around his ankle were unnervingly soothing.

"I don't get how this spirit crap works."

"Me neither, but since using my body helped you, I thought this might too."

"Why?" Lucia asked. "It's better for you in the long run if I can't move."

"I have a favor to ask of you. Now," Haru confessed. "Two of my friends, Let and Julia, are trapped in that castle, deep enough in that everyone else will probably ask you to release them when you have your body back, rather than rescue them now. They're on the sixth floor, near the pool."

"There's a pool?"

"Comforting. Can you use the Ten Powers to save them?"

"If this," Lucia gestured to his ankle, "Isn't an issue by the time they start the attack, then sure. I'm bored enough to give it a shot, and it's not like they'll be any harder to kill outside the castle than in."

"Very comforting, but thanks away," Haru mumbled. "Will your ankle get in the way?"

"Don't know."

"It looks worse than this morning."

"It is."

"What did you do to it?"

"Took over Elie again." When Haru stopped massaging the ankle, and in fact squeezed it while he glared up at Lucia, the blond winced and elaborated. "That idiot sorcerer friend of yours thought it was a good idea to tell everyone that if we didn't get my body any later than tomorrow, than they wouldn't be able to get to the Altar of Birth in time without teleporting. And that if it came to that, they probably wouldn't have the energy to break the curse. Elie panicked and—stop putting pressure there you asshole—she started going nuts. If I hadn't taken over her and let someone give her a sedative, her magic would have ripped the ship apart."

Haru stopped squeezing, mumbled a half-hearted apology, and resumed massaging the injury. "So you got to be the hero today."

"It's not heroic if it's self-serving. I need this hunk of scrap metal to get everyone to the Altar of Birth, and if her magic had gone really wild and destroyed the planet, then I'd prefer that happen while I wasn't on it."

"Thanks for taking one for the team anyway," Haru told him.

"Whatever."

"Really. You ankle—"

"Still hurts like hell, so you can be as grateful as you want, but that stunt might mean I get to sick my men on your friends in a few days if I'm not able to fetch them tomorrow."

Determined not to see that happen, Haru let the topic drop and focused on trying to use whatever weird soothing effect he had to make Lucia's ankle recover. At least somewhat. He didn't track the time, but when he was finally bored enough to try talking again, he realized Lucia wasn't likely to respond.

Spirits didn't need to sleep, but Haru had slept a few times since the curse took effect, when he was calm or bored enough. He wondered which one Lucia would cite when he woke up.

No. That was stupid. Lucia already said he would rescue Let and Julia out of boredom. It was obvious which he would use to explain his falling asleep. Haru smiled and made himself comfortable on the other side of Lucia's cushion pile. He wasn't tired, but sleeping sounded nice. With no one else to interact with, keeping Lucia company sounded nice too. They'd rest up, and in the morning, when everyone else attacked, he would follow Lucia as they snuck in through the chaos and rescued his friends.


	8. Chapter 8

On the morning of the eighth day that the curse had been in place, the people of Mildea lined up before the Demon Card headquarters.

The only thing stalling the attack was one Etherion wielder who had nearly destroyed the planet they day before. Elie seemed emotionally stable that morning, but no one wanted to risk freaking her out again. Especially not if their only means of stopping her was letting Lucia control her body. That being said, no one wanted her to get her way either.

"I can help!" Elie insisted. "If we fail today, we have to beg Lucia to let us save Haru. If I used my magic… I'm getting better at controlling it! Let me come along!"

Sieg shook his head. "We're about to invade the headquarters of an organization that would be happy to either kill you or see you in their leader's… Their leader's…" Bed. "Arms. The only person I'd be less willing to let come along is the leader himself."

With the sort of timing that only happened in stories, Lucia passed by Sieg just then and said, "Incidentally, I'm helping with the break in."

"No you're not," Sieg told him. "I don't trust you not to turn on us. And even if you manage not to switch back to helping Demon Card, using Haru's body makes you the biggest target. If you damage him—"

"Then I've lost my bartering chip and I'm out a good host. I won't let his body take any damage." Lucia rolled his eyes. "Besides," he added, gesturing to his left, "Haru's with me. He can let me know if someone is sneaking up on me."

Haru, who was standing on Lucia's right, couldn't deny that it was hilarious to watch Sieg talk to the empty spot on the other side of Lucia as he gave orders on how to restrain the blond. As a token effort to keep Lucia from feeling like he could do whatever he pleased, Haru scolded him for messing with Sieg while Lucia found an idea place among a group of sorcerers to slip into.

In his own body, Lucia could have easily strolled through the front gates on his own and taken out any opposition, but Haru's body was just different enough to throw him off. Even if he was getting better with his footing, he didn't want to discover what the slight change in arm length might do if he got in a serious fight. At least against most of the small fry Demon Card admitted, he wouldn't have too much trouble. He hoped.

Everyone did their best to ignore that the leader of Demon Card was joining the raid on Demon Card, save for one girl who thought to give Lucia her hat in an attempt to hide his hair. That made sense. The less obviously he looked like Haru, the less likely he was to face one of his demons.

"You remember my directions, right?" Haru asked.

"Didn't bother to try. I thought the point of you coming was to lead me."

Haru stuttered some sort of exasperated response. Lucia wasn't paying too much attention to it, but he thought he caught the word 'chimp' in there somewhere.

Whatever petty idealism Haru was pushing on him, it almost prevented Lucia from hearing the orders to move. He hadn't known what a sorcerers' charge would look like and, in hindsight, he still didn't. The first thing everyone had done, being specialized in long range attacks, was fired at the walls around the castle. Someone grabbed Lucia and pulled him forward, and rather than try and make out anything in the dizzying array of magic attacks firing off everywhere, he focused on not tripping as someone who had experience moving through such an attack led him forward.

He broke away from their grip once they were past the walls. People were splitting into smaller groups as they fanned out between the buildings, trying to draw as much attention as they could away from the main group that would infiltrate the castle. At Haru's insistence, Lucia pulled the hat he'd been given tight over his head, and made sure no telltale silver hair stuck out, then joined the group charging towards the castle.

To Lucia's disappointment and relief, he had to do little more than run to get inside. Sieg had been part of the main group breaking in to get his body, and it had taken nothing more than basic wind magic to knock any opposition out of the way.

While most of the group started following the directions Lucia had given several days earlier to find his room, Lucia split off, half listening to Haru's directions, half figuring out the shortest route to their destination using his own knowledge of the castle layout. Even if he didn't know all of it well enough to map, he was still able to recognize most of the hallways when he saw them. And with one of Mildea's best sorcerers, the silver claimer held responsible for Reina's death, and a former Demon Card general turned resistance member—Lucia hadn't bothered to ask their name, but he didn't recognize the man from appearance—the unfamiliar boy in the odd hat didn't warrant a high ranking official come and stop him. Using Haru's Eisenmeteor, it was easy to hack through anyone who stood in his way.

Haru grimaced after the fourth man fell. "You can't…" He didn't even know what to say. Would a simple 'no killing' order get the sentiment across? Should he be more specific? Don't kill your own men. Don't use my sword for murder. Lucia had been little more than a brat since losing his body. Haru had forgotten what happened when the brat was given a weapon and potential stabbing victims. And without his body, and Lucia distracted with having opponents, Haru couldn't stop him or even make him listen.

Maybe it would have been a better idea to have Lucia give Sieg the directions, and let him find Let and Julia.

Lucia took a bit more time than he needed to locate them, largely thanks to him stopping when they were almost there. Apparently he couldn't wait two days to return to normal and confirm that there was a pool somewhere in the castle.

Haru tapped his foot impatiently as Lucia surveyed the room.

"Do you plan of going for a dip before we get my friends out too?"

Lucia put his finger to his chin as if he were considering it, and said, "That doesn't sound like a bad idea." What he didn't say was that he couldn't swim. Admitting that was a lot less funny than listening to Haru freak out over his betrayal to the mission. He wasn't really that interested in the pool. He'd only stopped to see how Haru would react to it.

Haru decided to react by taking advantage of the action to take a deep breath and begin explaining why Lucia could not kill. After Haru's lecture got tiresome, which happened about fifteen seconds in, Lucia left the pool room. By this time the halls were largely empty. Most of the soldiers had gone down to face the main group of invaders, and only a single man stayed behind to inspect the bodies of Lucia's victims.

His back was to Lucia, and Haru was still nagging, so Lucia reasoned that Let and Julia could take the man out when he left with them and went towards the hiding spot Haru had positioned himself before.

As he was reaching down to expose the two, Haru's head snapped up. His eyes went wide, looking at something behind Lucia. Seeing this, Lucia was already ducking out of the way by the time Haru yelled "Look out!"

Lucia dodged to the left, grunting when he came down hard on his injured ankle and fell over. The man he'd ignored clipped his shoulder as he lunged past.

Lucia rolled into a battle stance, ignoring the burning sensation where he'd been hit and drawing Haru's sword. From the front, he could see the attacker had a Dark Bring on him. "What a waste," he muttered.

"Hey, there's a hole burning through my shirt," Haru pointed out. "Please try to keep him off my skin."

"Naturally. If your friends fail, I'm going to need this body if I want to accomplish my mission."

Lucia got as good a look as he could before his opponent charged again. He didn't recognize the man, which was a statement he could make for the vast majority of his followers. Seeing the incoming attack from the front, though, he was able to easily guess the power it granted his opponent. Long claws extended from the man's fingers, which glowed in the dark brings' telltale purple hue as he lunged forward. Those weren't acidic, but they would still dissolve whatever the touched.

The claws were a bit longer than Lucia had expected. He didn't jump back far enough to escape the man's swing, and only avoided harm because his foot gave out on him just then. Since he had determined that this man, whoever he was, would die, Lucia elected not to be too embarrassed by that.

With his good foot, he kicked the man in the cheapest place Haru's legs could reach, then sprung back up. For an opponent who liked fast, close combat, the best sword to use would be… "Silfarion!"

Lucia, Haru, and the man from Demon Card all waited, but the Ten Powers didn't change forms. Huffing, Lucia called the blade's name again, and tried to will it out the same way he would with his Decaforce. No dice. He shook the sword, wondering if it had somehow gotten stuck, then looked to Haru in confusion.

"It… can tell you aren't the Rave Master?"

"Your loser friends had better grab my sword too, then," Lucia grumbled. "Fine. Fuck Silfarion!"

The man lunged a third time, and Lucia danced around him, taking several stepped away before stretching his arms back, then tossing the Ten Powers with all his might. The hilt connected with the man's head, which might have sounded ineffective, but all of Lucia's might was a lot. Lucia couldn't tell if the head injury was fatal, but whatever the case, the immediate threat was gone. The man crumpled to the floor and made no attempt to get up again.

He took the Dark Bring, then turned back to the niche where Let and Julia had been hiding, ready to drag them out. Julia emerged from hiding before he had the chance.

"There was no point where you couldn't have come out and taken care of him yourself."

"It looked like you had it under control," Julia said. "Besides, we weren't sure if it was you or Haru until you started cussing. If it was you, we couldn't trust that you wouldn't turn around and help him stop us."

It was a fair point, but Lucia gave Julia the finger anyway. "Come on, then. The exit's this way."

"Wait!" Let grabbed Lucia's shoulder. "Aren't you forgetting something important?"

Lucia looked to Haru, who shrugged. Neither of them could think of any other companions of Haru's who might be missing.

"Don't bother with him," Julia said. "I'll get it."

So it was settled. Lucia went on ahead with Let following close behind and Julia taking care of something or rather. It wasn't until he'd gone down two flights of stairs and looked back to make sure they were following him that Lucia saw what that was.

"You didn't need to grab that."

"Most of us would consider it an issue if Haru's sword was left behind in your castle," Julia told him.

Lucia shrugged. "Alright. Hand it over."

Julia scowled.

"We need to get out. I figured this would do," he flashed the Dark Bring, "But if you want to spare Haru's body whatever taint a Dark Bring leaves, then I can make do with a plain metal sword."

Haru erupted into protest while Julia scoffed and passed the sword to Lucia.

"You'd better not turn it on us," Let added.

Lucia, who couldn't hear what Let had said over Haru's insistence that his body was not to be corrupted by Dark Bring, shrugged and gave an apathetic nod. He already had Let and Julia. All that mattered now was not losing them on the way out, and it didn't matter much to him how they felt about his methods. All he really cared about then was finding a good time to let Haru know that only Dark Bring that were designed to corrupt bodies could do so. Most only messed with a person's head.

He missed his Sinclaire stone…

-o-

Only seventeen people had to die on the way back to the ship. Lucia thought that was incredibly conservative, though Haru and his dragon friends disagreed. He didn't see why the objected so strongly. It's not like he was killing their allies.

Let and Julia were quick to split with him after they reached Mildea's ship. They went over to their other friends and reassured everyone that they were alight and all (loudly) discussed the strangeness of someone who looked and sounded like Haru but acted like a soulless monster. Rather than point out how this whole fiasco proved he did have a soul, Lucia went to see if the others had managed to secure his body.

He arrived at the point of interest to find Sieg, Musica, Shuda, and Miltz hovering over his body, which lay in the bed where Haru's body had been before Lucia hijacked it. Sieg and Miltz were busy discussing which path to the Mystic Realm would get them where they needed to go the fastest. They couldn't agree on whether it would be better to take a first route into the realm even if it meant a longer trip, or fly in territory that Demon Card would easily follow over and have a shorter trip, although they both insisted that the other needed to see their point before Demon Card mobilized and came after them. Shuda listened in, occasionally, giving input. Musica, who had no contributions to make, focused his attention on Lucia.

"You don't know how to smile, do you?"

Haru smothered a laugh, which made Lucia scowl. "What makes you think that?"

Musica gestured to Lucia's body. "That look you're giving me right now, it seems you make it in your sleep, too."

Lucia took the rare opportunity to view his own sleeping face. Sure enough, it bore the same unattractive scowl. Good. He'd have hated to look like some happy dork in his sleep.

"By the way, you're freaking heavy," Musica added.

"If you'd taken my armor off, you might have found me lighter," Lucia pointed out. Although as a spirit he'd shed his armor almost immediately, no one had removed is from his body. Had the Demon Card doctors even tried to diagnose him? Or were they too afraid to of what might happen if they moved him around to get him undressed?

Unable to help himself, Lucia leaned over and inspected the black metal. The parts on his arms were better aligned that he'd been able to get them dressing himself, while the breast plate was crooked. Someone had stripped him down and redressed him. When he had his body back, he would be having a word with whoever thought it was a good idea to put armor on someone in a coma.

"We probably shouldn't let you wear that," Shuda said, noticing Lucia's attention to the armor. "If we have to fight you when this is over, I'd rather not give you any sort of advantage."

"So… take it off, then?" Musica asked.

Shuda nodded, and looked to Sieg for support. Sieg, seeing Shuda's look, shifted uncomfortably and devoted his full focus to his discussion with Miltz. Shuda turned to Musica instead, and the two started at one another, waiting for the other person to offer to undertake the task.

"Look," Lucia said, "I'm wearing something under that, but if the thought really bothers you three so much, then I can undress myself."

"I'll go get the camera," Musica declared.

Lucia got to work fast, not wanting any photos to exist where anyone could mistake him for being taken advantage of by Haru Glory. Haru watched Lucia hurry to unclasp and remove the pieces of his armor, and as the point that Lucia was rolling his body over to reach the backside, he said, "You really don't want Musica getting a picture of this, do you?"

"Do you?"

"Not really. Answer my question."

Lucia ignored Haru and continued to undo the armor.

"Answer my question of I shall say the words 'do you' over and over until you do what I want."

"It would be a pain. I already have a lot of things on my to do list, and a lot of them are thanks to this stupid curse," Lucia explained. "I have to hurt Julia, get the last piece of the Sinclaire if I have to pry it from the sorcerer's cold, dead hands, kill you sister, separate you and Elie, break all the clocks in the sorcerer's room…" Had Let done anything to earn himself special targeting? Lucia paused to try and remember anything the dragon man had done.

When Lucia stopped rattling of his plans, Haru shook his head and said, "I'm not even going to get mad. At this point, I just wish you could put that list in a coherent order."

"Wait," Sieg cut in, not realizing how close he came to talking over Haru, "All the clocks in my room?"


	9. Chapter 9

They went with the route Miltz wanted in the end. They were already rushing to take off when Lucia gave his (very small) time estimate of how long it would take Demon Card to throw together enough people to pursue them. When he also mentioned that having all four lord of the Mystic Realm under his thumb meant that his men were more likely than not going to pursue them the whole way, Sieg dropped his argument and everyone agreed on the faster route.

Of course, Lucia doubted anyone too major had come along for this. His body had been stolen from Demon Card, not killed. Megido and the others, so long as they had hopes of him waking up, would be worried about what might happen to him, but it wouldn't be too pressing an issue. The enemy wanted him alive. Hopefully they would only send weaker demons after him.

Since the bed he'd been using ended up as a storage unit for his body, Lucia went to the meditation room where he and Haru had hid earlier to sleep. Compared to his own bed back at headquarters, it was a massive downgrade, but it still beat having to curl up on the floor in Mega Unit.

-o-

Lucia was content to make himself a pile of cushions to lie on and try to sleep, but Haru stayed awake. Outside the room, he could hear people getting frantic. Two ships were pursuing them now, and it looked like a smaller, third one was joining the chase. He wasn't going to harass Lucia for deciding to sleep. It was his body that was worn out, after all. Haru was still surprised that Lucia could sleep at all in the given situation.

He left the meditation room in the hopes of finding some way to help, but there wasn't much he could do. He could survey the situation. He could check people's mental state, but there was no one to relay this information to, no way to physically assist in defending the ship. And nothing he could do when Demon Card started to fire at them. He had to trust the people of Mildea to keep everything under control.

Haru found himself out on the ship's deck, watching the scene play out and doing nothing more than hoping for the best.

Early in the morning, maybe around three or four, they passed into the mystic realm. While they gained a little distance there, they didn't lose their tail.

Haru was deep in through, racking his brain for ways to help, when a hand appeared only inches in front of his nose and waved in his face. He whirled around to see someone who was supposed to be resting.

"I've been calling your name for five minutes," Lucia said.

"Really?"

"No. I just got here. It's impossible to sleep when the whole ship keeps shaking. Are we being shot at?"

"Well, we are the enemy."

"The enemy ship has their leader hostage on board... as far as they know. They are dead when I get my body back." Lucia growled.

"Speaking of dead, you killed you own men yesterday."

"Yes. And I just made plans to kill my own men again. Or did you think that was hyperbole?"

Haru was a spirit, but he still could have sworn he felt a chill settle in his gut. "How can you say that so casually?"

"It's not that special of a skill."

"Stop treating this like it doesn't matter! Thanks to you, those men are dead! There's blood on my hands."

"Oh no. What a nightmare." Lucia paused. "Actually, I did get blood on your shirt. Do you know how to wash that out? I've never had to worry about it myself."

"Lucia, people are dead."

"People die all the time." A shot from one of the pursuing Demon Card ships struck the shield around their ship harder than the others, and the entire aircraft rocked. "Since you people couldn't get me out stealthily, once we've returned to our own bodies people will probably die here. Let's just hope they live long enough to break this curse first."

"You have no soul."

"Our current predicament would suggest otherwise."

"Why do you treat every conversation like a contest?"

"It's not a conversation when you're lecturing me."

"Well you need to be lectured. Maybe if someone had tried to straighten you out earlier, you wouldn't be such a heartless monster."

"Maybe if someone had been around to 'straighten me out' I—"

Another shot rocked the ship, this time tilting it dangerously to its side. Lucia lost his balance and stumbled forward, sliding into the railing. Haru stumbled as well, and passed right through the railing and over the edge of the ship.

Lucia swore and looked around. One lone woman had been watching, curious about the conversation she could only hear half of. He took a moment to take her in, then estimated how high up the ship was, then looked back at her. "We lost Haru. Stay on course. The two of us will meet you at the altar."

Before the woman could process what he'd said, Lucia jumped over the edge of the deck.

-o-

Haru was picking himself up off the ground when he heard a crash not too far off.

Being a spirit who didn't think too hard about what he should or shouldn't pass though, Haru had fallen into a wooded area, passing through leaves but bumping against every branch before hitting dirt. From the amount of rustling, whoever else had fallen had stopped somewhere in the branches.

Curious as to who else had lost their footing, and hopeful that their ship might come back for this other person, Haru headed in the direction of the noise.

A few hundred yards from where he'd landed, Lucia hopped down from a branch. He'd torn Haru's jacket and had scratches all over his face and arms—Haru would have a scar to match Lucia's if he didn't get those cuts cleaned—but judging from the wince as he landed, the preexisting injury to his ankle was the only serious damage.

Lucia looked around, spotted Haru, and nodded. "Good. I was worried you might have landed further back."

Haru paused a moment, then resumed his stride. Lucia jumped after him? "I appreciate the thought, but you already crippled yourself falling once, and my spirit is immune to harm."

"That's nice." Lucia took a moment to inspect the tear to Haru's jacket, then looked up at the spirit. "Do you know the way to the altar?"

The way to the…? Haru gasped. "Oh God! No! Do you?"

"Yes. And if I'd trusted you to get their on your own, I wouldn't have jumped." Lucia gestured in a direction that, to Haru, seemed random. "Your friends aren't going to restore me if you're missing. Let's go."

When Lucia turned around and started briskly walking away, Haru hesitated a moment before following.

"Can we make it in time?"

"We'll find something."

"What if nothing comes up?"

"Something usually comes up. How adverse are you to theft?"

"Can we get there on time by foot?

"Tomorrow evening, assuming nothing stops us. It would be better if your friends send a Rune Wing after us, or if we can find some other ride."

"Let and Julia know dragons. Maybe one of them will help us." Haru paused. "How can you know how long it will take to get there, but not the land formations around your own base?"

Lucia pulled a golden chain from his sleeve, tossed it up once, and upon catching it, showed the item to Haru. The Sinclaire stone gleamed in his hand. "Your friends shouldn't have let me get near my body. Unfortunately, the other three weren't on my person at the time."

"You sleep with that on?"

Yes. Lucia looked away so Haru couldn't gage his immediate reaction, then said, "The curse knocked me out. Otherwise I wouldn't have slept in armor either."

"I thought that was a little weird."

"A little?"

"For you. For a normal person it would be downright bizarre."

Lucia snorted. "Alright. Now shut up and keep your eyes peeled for something that can get us to the altar faster."

Not so much to give Lucia what he wanted as to keep the conversation from lasting long enough to turn against him, Haru stopped talking and started looking up as he walked, hoping to spot a dragon or a Rune Wing that might pick them up.

In the three hours that they walked in silence, Haru didn't count the number of trees he walked straight through. That was a habit he might want to avoid getting into if he planned on getting his body back, but as a spirit it didn't faze him to pass through an object, and he could pass through anything. Although things he still expected to be solid, like the ground or Lucia, were still solid. So it was when he walked into Lucia and completely flipped over Lucia's crouched down form and landed on his back that he realized his travel companion had stopped.

"Warn me when you—" Haru saw the Lucia had bent down, expression pained, and stopped himself. He rolled onto his feet and stood before asking "What happened? Are you alright?"

"Fine. Just too long on my feet, is all."

"Your ankle was alright yesterday."

"I haven't had much time off of it since yesterday," Lucia growled.

"You shouldn't have jumped."

"If we took the time to set up a more thought out search party, we would have gotten too far away to track you down again."

"You couldn't use the Sinclaire to find me?"

"Mother only tells me what she wants me to know."

"It's creepy that you call it that."

Lucia sucked in his breath and pushed himself off the ground. "I can keep going."

"You're injured," Haru told him. "You're allowed to be vulnerable. If you need to rest, don't hesitate."

Lucia glared at him, opened his mouth, shut it, then shook his head. "We won't make it we stop to rest. Your body can support me."

"Oh. Right."

"And I am not vulnerable."

"Sure."

-o-

By nightfall Haru had taken to miming supporting Lucia as they walked. The rules for how tangible he was to Lucia at any given time seemed to waiver (just like the rules of how solid everything else was) and he wasn't sure if he was really helping, but Lucia hadn't told him to back off, so Lucia assumed he at least wasn't doing anything to further irritate the injury.

"It's getting late."

"We have to keep going."

"You aren't going to walk for forty-eight hours straight, are you?"

"No. We didn't have forty-eight hours to start with."

"We're walking nonstop." Haru shook his head in disbelief. "You know, if returning to your own body isn't enough to heal your spirit, you're screwed."

Lucia bit his lip and said nothing.

"Lucia?"

Lucia stayed silent and kept walking.

"I'm going to look for a nearby town or… something. Get us a ride. I don't feel right letting you walk like this."

Haru stepped away from Lucia, and immediately moved back to his side when the boy gasped in pain and nearly doubled over.

"Is it that bad?"

"I can deal with it."

"You're sweating."

Lucia growled, but sat down without being prompted and began to massage his ankle.

"I'll see about finding a ride for us," Haru said. "Stay put. I'll check the general area and be right back"

"Stay."

"Hm?"

"Stay," Lucia repeated. "This is messed up. The injury isn't as painful when I use your body and now having you nearby keeps it from becoming unbearable."

"The longer you walk on it—"

"The closer we'll get to the altar. Give me a minute, and we'll get back to walking."


	10. Chapter 10

They didn't find anything they could ride on. No Rune Wing came to help them reach the rest of the group. No dragons landed nearby to carry them the rest of the way—although a few did fly overhead and get Haru and Lucia's hopes up. To Haru's horror, they ended up walking through most of the night and well into the next day. If Lucia looked worn for it, he didn't let it affect his attitude.

"It's your body that's tired. Once we're back to normal, it'll be your problem."

Haru suspected the broken ankle would still be Lucia's problem, but he said nothing.

By noon the altar, or what was left of it after Lucia had his way with the structure, was in sight. It prompted both of them to pick up the pace. Lucia was limping so severely that Haru was surprised each time he took a step without collapsing, but he knew what his body was capable of, and Lucia was apparently every bit as stubborn and determined as Haru could get. In any other situation, Haru would have found that fact unfortunate.

What they could agree was unfortunate in their current situation was the Demon Card had beat them to the altar. They spotted a DC ship from several miles away, docked by the ruins of the altar.

Haru, being a spirit, was fine walking through trees and rocks and right out into the open, but as they drew closer to the altar Lucia took cover behind those same obstacles, only moving when he was certain he wouldn't be spotted. Several hundred years out from where Demon Card had set up base, Lucia sat down behind a large chunk of debris, took a deep breath, and reached down to massage his ankle.

"It hurts that bad?"

"What clued you in?"

"You're the one who insisted we not take a moment to rest."

"Haru, my foot fucking _hurts_. We're almost there. We have a few hours left. I can sit for five minutes. Make yourself useful and find out how much my men know about the situation. If anyone knows what areas they're guarding, then we can work out what areas they _aren't_ guarding."

Haru studied Lucia, who was clearly struggling to mask exactly how much pain his ankle was causing him, then the ruins, and the heavy guard around them, then back to Lucia. The Sinclaire stone gleamed from around his neck.

"Did you grab all four?"

"Come again?"

"Sinclaire stones. Did you grab all four of them?"

"Of course." Lucia took a break from massaging his ankle to retrieve the other three stones from his pocket. "They were on my person when you took my body. I wasn't about to risk leaving them with you. Last time you people had one of the stones, you nearly stabbed Elie over it."

That had been a bluff, Haru thought, but there were more important things to do than explain to Lucia that not everyone was totally cool with stabbing people whenever they urge struck them.

"When I get back, we have to keep walking. I don't care if it hurts. I didn't _make_ you jump off the ship."

Whatever comeback Lucia planned to make about how it _was_ Haru's fault for falling overboard, and in all honesty he wasn't sure he could have found his way to the ruins on his own. Haru hurried towards the Demon Card guards before he could hear it.

There were about twenty men on guard that he could see, and more hovering near a ship a few hundred yards off. The men were armed, two brandishing swords while the rest held guns. And the idea of Lucia going up against gunmen, with an injured foot, and distance to close, in Haru's body, was _not_ one Haru was keen on.

He found the man who looked most like he might be in charge, and stepped inside of him. Scanning his mind for information, Haru found himself a lucky break. The Demon Card ship was waiting here because his friends' ship wasn't far off. The guard went all the way around the perimeter, but was thickest in this area. If no one left their posts, Lucia would probably be able to sneak through at another point. Assuming he could walk that far.

That was a pretty big assumption to make. Lucia hadn't budged from where Haru left him. He didn't even look up when Haru returned. Just kept massaging the injured area.

"Want me to help?"

"No time." With a grimace, Lucia rose to his feet. "You found something."

"We should be able to sneak past the guard if we go a little ways that way." Haru pointed in the closer direction that would take them around the ruins. "My friends are already on top. Will you be able to climb the rubble?"

"Not much choice." Lucia tested shifting his weight so each leg bore and equal amount, and nearly fell over. "We only have a few hours before this is permanent. I can put up with it that long."

"Yeah. About that… have you ever considered that you… um… _breaking your spirit_ might also be permanent?"

"It's a broken ankle. Once I'm back in my own body I'll stay off it, and that should be enough for it to heal."

"It's a broken spirit-ankle. It might not follow the—"

"Only a few hours," Lucia interrupted. "I'm not going to walk fast at this point, Glory. Point me to the hole in the fucking perimeter so we can get this over with."

-o-

Lucia couldn't climb.

Well, _technically_ he could. Even if the way he could only balance himself with one foot, and kept stumbling in the mountain of rubble when he had to take weight off it, made progress a little awkward. And for his efforts, Haru had chosen not to comment on the short gasps of pain. Although if Lucia started crying, it would not be an option to refrain from commenting.

They had been at in an hour now, Haru passing through inconveniently placed chunks of the altar while easily stepping up to the next good foothold, and Lucia struggling to get over each larger object he encountered. An hour. And they weren't even half way up. Haru was considering acknowledging the obstacles were there so he could take the same paths Lucia did. It might speed things up if the bastard didn't have to find a sturdy enough path in addition to figuring out how to travel it with a busted ankle.

"Does this look like a good path?" Haru asked, hopping up to a large chunk of stone. It was maybe ten feet long, and smooth. With nothing too major blocking the other side of it. It would give Lucia and easier time.

Lucia put a hand on the rim of the stone and tried to shake it. It felt steady. It didn't look like it would provide much cover, but when he glanced over his shoulder neither of the Demon Card grunts that he had spotted patrolling the perimeter were looking his way. And after so much struggling through small, uneven, wobbly rocks, and large flat surface looked inviting.

He climbed up onto it, when something suddenly occurred to him: To hell with dignity. Haru had seen him in more vulnerable situations, and for as bad as his limp had gotten, he could hardly look less physically capable at the moment.

He crawled across the rock. And Haru, bless his stupid heart, didn't comment.

As Lucia was slipping down the other side of the rock, he heard a shout, followed closely by gunfire. Instinctively, he twisted to see who dared fire a gun in his presence, and banged his ankle against the edge of the rock he'd just crawled across in the process.

Lucia hissed and fought the temptation to curl up into fetal position. If he hadn't seen his men opening fire and running into the mess of rubble after him, he wasn't certain he would have been able to resist.

Since he _had_ seen the armed when now pursuing him, Lucia clenched his teeth, forced himself onto the injured ankle, and resumed making his way across the rubble. Although for as fast as he could make himself go, and as fast as the men with guns were going… Dammit. In his own body he wouldn't hesitate to hold his ground, but he wasn't sure what Haru's body was capable of.

"This way!" Haru called, waving for Lucia to follow him onto the next path that provided no cover. "Lucia, come this way!"

"Go ahead!" Lucia snapped back. Pointing forward to a small hill of collapsed pillars a few hundred yards off, he added, "Your friends are right over there. Go make sure no one got to them."

No one had. The Sinclaire would have told Lucia if the mission became futile. Probably would have stopped supplying him with directions and gone off to find a new bearer. And it wasn't like Haru could do anything to help if his friends _were_ in trouble. But Haru wasn't the sort to think of that.

"Can you get there on your own? You don't need support? I thought me being close—"

"A leg brace would be better support than your awful cheerleading. _Go_!"

Haru sucked in his breath, tried to judge how long it would take the men to catch up to Lucia, then shook his head and took off to see his friends.

The pain in his ankle intensified has Haru stepped away, but Lucia put on a show of still struggling over a few more rocks. Haru kept checking back as he ran, and it wouldn't do for Haru to be anywhere in sight.

As soon as Haru had disappeared over the other side of the pillar pile, Lucia turned and counted the men after him. One… two… four in all. That was good. The more corpses he left, the more likely he was to get an earful from Haru later.

Something about that thought struck him as off, and it took Lucia a minute to realize why. There wasn't going to be a later. Not unless they failed to break the curse. Or, worse, if his ankle was spiritually busted even after he returned to his body. Surrounded by the Rave Master and his allies, with everyone from Demon Card held at bay, he'd make a good hostage at the very least.

No more spirit Haru hovering behind him nagging. Lucia _almost_ wasn't sure if he'd miss that or not. Almost.

Well, fingers crossed that returning to his body would fix his ankle up. And he was sure he'd never hear the end of it from Haru whenever they met in battle. Not if he found out about this. That was almost the same as having Haru's spirit constantly hovering behind him telling him not to be an ass.

The men were getting close now. It pained Lucia to see how fast they covered the distance that he had barely managed to claw himself across. And that made what he did next easier.

"Mother."

The Sinclaire stone responded, gleaming around his neck and egging him to destroy all five at once. And as much of the rubble as possible too. They were already undoing the curse, so what harm could it do. The stone wanted to destroy. Destroy, destroy, destroy.

Lucia blocked the voice out and commanded it to crush _one_ of the men closing in on him. There was a time and place for wholesale slaughter, but this was not it.

The air around his target distorted, taking on a purple hue as the pressure around the man multiplied. The other four stopped, three staring at the soon to be dead man, the other looking at the purple glow beneath the shirt Lucia wore. That lucky man missed seeing his companion collapse in on himself.

Lucia dispelled the pressure zone, gave all four men a moment to watch the dead man's blood trickle down through the cracks, then killed the three who hadn't noticed his Dark Bring.

The survivor looked back and forth between the crumpled up corpses and their murderer. "You stole—but as the… the Rave… you…"

"I require some assistance," Lucia told the man, motioning the direction Haru had disappeared to. "Help me reach my destination, and you won't die."

-o-

Sieg had produced a pocket watch, and all of Haru's friends had gathered around him to watch the seconds tick by. Everyone without a clock was hovering near someone who had one. With less than an hour before the curse became irrevocable, Every second that Lucia wasn't there was agony.

They had crammed as many people as they could into the section of ruins that they had determined was most likely to have been the peak of the altar. An entire town transported to the Mystic Realm with Demon Card on their heels after stealing their leader's body. And now it might have been for nothing, thanks to Lucia deciding to jump from an airship.

The second hand reached the top of Sieg's watch, and the next minute began.

Musica cursed. "Why did he have to jump off? That idiot."

Elie frowned. "If Haru fell—"

"How much do you want to be Lucia didn't just make that up. His word is all we have to go on that Haru was there in the first place."

"I validated Haru's presence," Sieg told Musica. "And Lucia stood nothing to gain from pretending we lost Haru. If we really did lose him, it would be to Lucia's benefit to pretend he was still around, but faking his loss only prevents Lucia from returning to his body."

"What's wrong with Haru's body?" Musica demanded. "There can't be a big difference between those two's strength. If Lucia stops us from undoing the curse, he can use Haru's body and Haru's out of luck."

"Haru's body is shorter than his. You saw it throw him off."

"Didn't stop him from storming his own castle."

Sieg needed to take a moment to consider that one. _Could_ Lucia be aiming for Haru's body? He was about to order a search when cries, a mixture of joy, shock, and fear, started to rise from the southern end of the sorcerers all clustered together in the ruins.

Having the advantage of being tall, Sieg looked over the crowd and saw Lucia, in Haru's body, supported by a man wearing a Demon Card uniform.

"Took you long enough!" Musica shouted.

Lucia flipped the entire crowd the middle finger and told the Demon Card soldier something. The man nodded and let go. Lucia wobbled, unsteady on his bad foot, but didn't fall over. The man scampered back the way he came, and a sorcerer stepped forward to help Lucia over to Sieg and Miltz, who would be leading the effort to break the curse.

Sieg checked his clock. Thirty eight minutes left. Assuming they could get every sorcerer in Mildea to all instantly understand what exactly they needed to do and sync perfectly on their first try, that was plenty of time. Under more realistic circumstances, he hoped no one would get too stressed by the diminishing time frame and the almost certain number of people who needed a bit longer to get up to speed with everyone else. The more people who freaked out, the less likely it would be for them to pull this off in time.

If Lucia gave his own men such ridiculous tasks, Sieg pitied them.

-o-

Lucia crouched over his body, which someone had lain down over the ruins. Haru stood over his, which Lucia had finally vacated.

Now that he could see it again, his ankle was terrifying to look at. It had swollen to the size of a grapefruit, and just thinking about it made the pain worse. Haru had offered to try and massage it again, but Lucia had declined. They were to wait over their own bodies. Doing anything other than what they were told might disrupt the sorcerers' attempt to break the curse.

"It looks painful," Haru whispered.

"The way it looks isn't the worst part," Lucia told him, "So why it bothers you, who can only see it, so much is beyond me."

"Because I c—"

The world blurred and whatever Haru said was lost in the vertigo. Both boys reeled, Lucia falling over and face planting into his body, and Haru stumbling and barely catching himself.

Everything blurred again, colors mixing and blending until everything looked brown, then faded to black.

-o-

Haru felt cold stone poking into the back of his neck before he opened his eyes.

People were staring down at him anxiously. It felt weird and wrong, and it took him a moment to realize that he'd gotten used to everyone but Lucia looking right through him over the past week and a half. How surreal. It felt more like he'd been trapped outside his body for over three years.

A moan to his left made him, and everyone else, turn their heads to watch Lucia's eyes flutter open. The blond immediately pushed himself upright, then nearly lost his balance and fell back down. Haru would have laughed, except when he tried to push himself up to be at eye level with Lucia, he did fall down.

"Are you alright?" Elie asked, reaching down and offering him a hand. He took it, but her effort to help pull him up ended with him accidentally pulling her down on top of him.

"They seem a bit disoriented," Let noted as Haru and Elie fumbled to put a bit of physical distance between them.

Lucia rubbed his eyes, flexed his hand to make sure he could do that properly, then reached over the Haru and Elie. With the two of them moving awkwardly around one another, a light shove was all it took to push Elie off, and Haru was still struggling enough with remembering how on moved their own body to stop him when he snatched the Sinclaire stone that he had wrapped around Haru's wrist.

Seeing Lucia have a general idea of how to move his limbs gave Haru the motivation to force himself upright. The crowd gathered around the two breathed a collective sigh of relief as he managed to hold himself in a steady sitting position.

"Back off," Lucia snapped. With the Sinclaire stone gleaming in his hand and the Rave Master still working out how he was supposed to stand up, the crowd obeyed.

With a space safely cleared, Lucia stood. The effort came shaky, and he regretted not ensuring that the audience had been chased away completely before he tried to get up. After Haru had mentioned the possibility so many times, he refused to show anyone watching him that it still hurt like hell to stand on his injured ankle.

But back in his own body, the injury should finally be able to heal. He hoped. Demon Card would probably let him stay off it for a few days if he pretended to be disoriented from the curse's aftereffects, at least.

Haru was fairing no better. If Lucia had given his body the recommended eight hours of sleep, it had been over the course of three days. Watching Lucia struggle through the final stretch, he had thought he would never have so much trouble. Not when the goal was in site and his spirit could easily skip to their destination. Now, he was fairly impressed that Lucia had made it at all. It felt like he spent the last of his energy reserves just to sit up, and he was now running on all the fumes in the world just to keep his eyes open.

Musica stepped forward and extended a hand to Haru, who gladly took it and let his friend pull him up.

"You alright?"

"Just tired."

Musica patted Haru's shoulder. "Better than brain dead, I suppose. Now that you're back, you _will_ be hearing about that one. Good to have you back, by the way."

Haru smiled. "I missed you guys. Even if I could see you. I missed you all so much. There was still Lucia to keep me company, but he can be such a… such a… such a petty brat!"

That wasn't the accusation anyone else would have thrown. Musica wouldn't have thought to go any milder than 'sadist'. But he let Haru have it.

"I missed you too."

"Hey," Lucia said. "This looks like a nice touching moment, but my ride's here, so I'm leaving. You can keep my armor. It's really not worth retrieving."

Haru and Musica jumped, and the more alert of the two looked around. Demon Card men were gathering all around the group. How many had come? Enough to take on everyone from Mildea? Lucia also had the Sinclaire with him, while Haru looked like he might fall over at any moment. If it came to a fight they…

Wait…

"Leaving?" Sieg asked. Several of the Demon Card men who were close enough to their leader to hear looked equally surprised.

"Yes. It's that thing where I go somewhere else."

Sieg looked up at Musica, who could clearly see from the look of confused relief on his face that he had also estimated things would go poorly for them in a fight. That might have had something to do with how tired he looked. A curse that took an entire village to dispel couldn't have been effortless to deal with.

"Sir?" One of the Demon Card men asked.

Lucia cast him a disapproving look. He recognized this man. This was the screw up who forced him onto the ship to Mildea in the first place. Was he the one who ordered they fire at Mildea's ship to? Either way, there was a punishment on the horizon.

"Sir?" the man repeated. "I feel confident that we could take them."

Lucia looked back at the crowd of sorcerers and friends of Haru, half-heartedly considering an attack. His main concern was making his injury too obvious to his men, and Elie might also get caught in the crossfire, but…

"What kind of idiot responds to being saved by killing their savior? If I find myself in need of a hand again, that won't inspire anyone to reach out," Lucia said. Is was true, but then he also didn't expect the world to last long enough for him to need help again.

This explanation seemed to pacify the man who was soon to be punished. He turned and began barking orders to the men surrounding the sorcerers. Some were told to ready the ship, others to keep a path clear for their king.

He'd missed being called that. Lucia stepped towards the path, doing his best to conceal his limp, but knowing it still showed. He hadn't made it more than five feet when something tackled him from behind, catching him in a bear hug. He was going to _murder_ —

"Lucia?"

Hearing Haru's voice, soft in his ear, Lucia hesitated.

"I mean what I said back at the Star Vestige," Haru whispered, holding tight to Lucia. "If this war ended, we could be friends."

"Get _off_ me!"

Lucia twisted out of Haru's tired grasp and turned to face Haru, who was still unnervingly close for someone who had developed a habit of walking right into people in the past week.

"Really," Haru said softly. "Sieg said you hurt yourself because you have a wounded spirit, right? If you had a nice relationship with someone, you might get better. If we could stop fighting, I wouldn't mind being that someone. You weren't _completely_ unbearable." Although how much of Lucia's compliance and assistance over the past week and a half had been out of self-interest and how much had been hints of human decency, Haru couldn't say.

Lucia started at Haru, studying clouded and tired eyes for any hints that this had been said just to take a jab at him. That this was something said in half-asleep delirium. But Haru looked sincere, and a shudder ran down Lucia's spine. He took a deep breath, shoved the idea that Haru might care to the side, and gave his answer.

"No."

And just because he was apparently a petty brat, and certainly not because Haru hugging him in front of his men again would look bad, he place a hand squarely on Haru's chest and shoved him back.

Haru stumbled, and fell over on his butt.

Musica, Elie, Sieg, Let, and even Lazenby, who Haru had completely forgotten was there, all rushed to help him back up, but his gaze stayed on Lucia. Or, more specifically, on the way the blond had completely stopped limping.

Had it been alright for him to do that? Haru didn't know how much damage Lucia might yet cause, but if they could work together under more optional circumstances, if there was a way to completely bring Lucia over, or at least to convince him to stop without having to end things the way their fathers had, if he could be persuaded to connect with others, then surely healing his spirit would be worthwhile.

For now, it was healed enough. Haru let Lazenby pick him up princess style, ashamed though he would be to recall the incident later. There was still time to figure out how to save Lucia on top of everything he threatened. For now, he had a lot of sleep to catch up on.


End file.
